James Patrick Holding; still the pretentious trifling hypocrite he always was

James Patrick Holding, a closet-homosexual apologist whose lies I've exposed on this blog many times over, has attacked me personally in his childish video cartoons uploaded to YouTube, apparently intended for dolts who mistake a relationship with their computer for a relationship with Christ.

Punch Bowling 3, v2: Alcoholic Rx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYK4uokq4Y

Detective Joe Fundy, Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52zioplT9XI

Screwy Moments in Scriptural Interpretation Part 15, v2: Romans 7 and Sin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTC2fR2roo

Dumb Question of the Month 32, v2: Gentile Evangelization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEMFv3e_Ldc

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Before I start in with the rebuttals, some general comments are in order:

First, Holding always caricatures himself in these videos as some type of moose-thing that is bigger, stronger and smarter, and caricatures me as an angry looking man who is smaller, weaker and stupid and wears a propeller-hat.  The conclusion that Holding expects most of his viewers to be on the mental level of a juvenile delinquents afflicted with ADHD, is irresistible.  

Second, Holding has banned me from commenting on his videos.  Fearsome warrior at the front of the battle, he is not.  He has also intentionally configured his tektonics.org website so that the person using my ISP, if they click on his website, will be given only raw and virtually unreadable html code instead of the normal webpage.  Apparently, not only does Holding fear my comments, he doesn't even want me to access his materials in a normal manner.

Third, Holding has banned my email address too, so apparently, he feels so threatened by me that he takes steps to decrease the chances, to the extent he can, that I will confront him with a charge of error, libel or misrepresentation.  In his private emails and messages sent in 2015 to other people, he admitted that he was frightened of me and that he had to take steps to calm his anxiety so his mind could focus on other things. He also admitted to his attorney that when he thinks his loved ones are being attacked, he gets irrational.  Don't believe me?  I'll provide those emails to anybody who asks.  

Fourth, what I said in court documents, or what others said about me in court documents, has nothing to do with the arguments I make to justify my interpretations of bible passages, but no, in all four above-cited videos, Holding gleefully taunts the reader with quotations of myself or others from my past lawsuits, asks them to guess who this is, then promises a free e-book in the future answering that question, as if their hearts should beat faster in anticipation (!?).  

In other words, despite knowing such quotes are irrelevant to my academic arguments on the bible, Holding still has faith that most of his followers have a Jerry Springer audience mentality that motivate them to leap fallaciously from "disapproved by another person!" over to "must be wrong about anything he has to say!" But since Holding's followers know there's a large group of people, including Christian scholars, who think Holding is a piece of shit scumbag deserving to be completely ignored (a conclusion they reach despite their knowing he holds the essentials and is likely saved), these followers of Holding apparently don't agree with Holding that disapproval by others indicates ignorance of biblical hermeneutics.

Fifth, it wouldn't matter if Holding's rebuttals were as conclusive as his salivating followers believed, none of his critiques of my views on bible alcoholism or Gentile salvation, etc, disturbs in the least any of my evidence or conclusions argued at this blog, that Holding

• is a homosexual, making him deserve to be killed, Leviticus 20:13
• has a filthy mind and mouth, violating Colossians 3:8
• is a bitter slanderer, violating Ephesians 4:31
• is the type of reviler that Paul said Christians should disassociate from, 1st Cor. 5:11
• has a bad reputation with those outside the church, violating 1st Timothy 3:7
• "obviously perverts" Context Group scholarship, according to co-founder Richard Rohrbough
• gives Christianity a bad name, is a boor with no manners and deserves no respect (Rohrbough).
• is a hypocrite afflicted with cognitive dissonance, given how he a) insists none of his words about me ever rose to the level of actual "libel", yet b) appears to have taken down his "internet predator alert" on me (something a gleefully shit-talking asshole like Holding would never do if he seriously believed his language wasn't libelous), and c) he refused to seek dismissal of the suit on the merits (i.e., by arguing that his comments were protected opinion or otherwise truthful), even though by his loud-mouthing one would think he'd have found it a piece of cake in court to defend his language as constitutionally protected free speech.
• is a hypocrite afflicted with cognitive dissonance, given how a) he said in private emails to his attorneys how scared he was that I might attack him or his family, and his 3,000 miles distance from me was the only reason he wasn't buying a gun for protection, b) he said I was "no different" than physical hostile inmates in a prison psyche ward, but c) still talks shit about me through his videos.  If you thought a person was likely to attack you physically, would you continue talking shit about them online?  Or did I forget that Holding's followers are afflicted with hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance like he is
• is a liar (i.e., in an email to Gary Habermas in 2015, who used to publicly endorse him, Holding said he is moving away from the "strong comeback" style), making him a liar since it is clear that Holding still loves "strong comeback" no less than he did between 1998 and 2014.

Holding has apparently missed an important nuance in the eternal debate:  When HE is guilty of immorality and slander and homosexuality, that hurts him more than accusations of my own errors hurts me.

I don't claim to have living inside me some magic man from the first century

I don't claim to have the power of the Holy Spirit

I don't claim to follow any of the morals of the bible.

I'm an atheist, I claim NO spiritual progress whatsoever.

But Holding makes all these claims.  Therefore, Holding's problem is hypocrisy and dishonesty.  And according to his own bible, the fact that he advertises himself to the world as a 'teacher' means his god finds his sins far more serious than this god finds the sins of non-teachers:

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (Jas. 3:1 NAU)

But for those interested in a more direct rebuttal...

Punch Bowling 3, v2: Alcoholic Rx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYK4uokq4Y

 

At 7:20-22, he ends this quote with "that's all, and that's all there is too it".  

Really?  Better break out that "I was just being sarcastic" excuse again, you'll need it for this blooper.

"Proverbs 31:6-7" say nothing about people in power.

It says nothing about them having a responsibility to avoid drunkenness.  

Here's what "Proverbs 31:6-7" says:

New American Standard, 1995 Update:
 6 Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to him whose life is bitter.
 7 Let him drink and forget his poverty And remember his trouble no more. 

New Revised Standard Version
 6 Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;
 7 let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. 

Holding, himself constituting the inerrant presence of God on earth, will never admit getting something wrong.

After all, its not logically possible for the creator to get something wrong.

So he will more than likely attempt damage control here of a rather trifling variety, and argue that he was "obviously" talking here about what those verses meant "in context".

In other words, Holding seems to be saying v. 6-7 cannot mean what they say, because v. 4-5 say something more easily acceptable to modern day inerrantists.

So the question to Holding is still relevant:  

Even assuming the "give" of Proverbs 31:6 is not a mandate, would God approve of Christians obeying the advice in Proverbs 31:6-7 today?  If not, when in the last 3,000 years did obedience to these specific verses become wrong for God's followers?  If yes, then what specific sort of "perishing", "bitter distress", "poverty" and "misery" would a person have to experience, to provide biblical license for a present-day Christian to provide the suffering person with enough alcohol to drink that they "forget" their poverty and "remember" their misery no more?

One more question:  When a person intentionally drinks alcohol with the intended goal of forgetting whatever is troubling them, is that a legitimate form of alcoholism?

But drinking heavily as a coping mechanism is often a sign of alcohol abuse or dependence. If you drink when you are depressed, you are probably making matters worse. Alcohol is a depressant, so using or abusing alcohol can cause or intensify feelings of extreme sadness or depression.

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As far as the Romans 7:7 issue, 

• Paul's saying "I would not have known" constitutes a denial that Holding honestly thinks is irrelevant to the text.  Holding's commitment to bible inerrancy forces him to trivialize a bible author's qualifying comments where expediency dictates.  
• If you could have known exceeding the speed limit was unlawful by means other than reading the specific law in the city's legislative codes, you do not say "I wouldn't have known speeding was illegal, except the city code had said..."  So either a) Paul really meant what he said, thus implying you cannot show "sin" where you cannot show the act to be prohibited in Mosaic law, or b) Paul erred by choosing to phrase his meaning in absolutist terms.  Indeed, most Christians would not speak in the absolutist way Paul did if they wished to make the point they think Paul was trying to make.
• It also doesn't even matter if Holding is correct and sin can be "known" without knowing it is condemned in Mosaic law.  Holding thinks that in the days of Moses, Yahweh disapproved of any Jew in his 20's sexually consummating his marriage to a 7 year old girl.  Does Holding dogmatize about God's opinion on the matter?  If so, where does the bible set forth this divine view with sufficient clarity that it deserves to be called an "obvious" truth about God? 
• If Holding does not dogmatize about God having such view, then would he refuse fellowship to a Christian man in a third-world country whose sexual relations with his prepubescent wife were authorized by the applicable governing law of the land?  Holding cannot condemn him under Romans 13, so why would Holding say such a man was sinning?
• If Holding lived back in 19th century Delaware, where the age of sexual consent was 7, what in the bible would Holding have pointed to as justification for declaring sinful the adult man who married and sexually consummated same to a girl of 7 years old with her parents' approval?
• Is the bible-god's alleged disapproval of sex within adult-child marriages really so "clear" that it is a valid test of spirituality, salvation, orthodoxy?  Is God's biblical disapproval of sex within adult-child marriages seriously as "clear" as his biblical disapproval of adultery is, yes or no?

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Regarding Gentile salvation and Acts 11:18:

Did Jesus, before he died, teach Gentiles how to get saved, yes or no?  Under biblical inerrancy, the answer is "yes":

 15 But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. Many followed Him, and He healed them all,
 16 and warned them not to tell who He was.
 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet:
 18 "BEHOLD, MY SERVANT WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN; MY BELOVED IN WHOM MY SOUL is WELL-PLEASED; I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT UPON HIM, AND HE SHALL PROCLAIM JUSTICE TO THE GENTILES.
 19 "HE WILL NOT QUARREL, NOR CRY OUT; NOR WILL ANYONE HEAR HIS VOICE IN THE STREETS.
 20 "A BATTERED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK OFF, AND A SMOLDERING WICK HE WILL NOT PUT OUT, UNTIL HE LEADS JUSTICE TO VICTORY.
 21 "AND IN HIS NAME THE GENTILES WILL HOPE." (Matt. 12:15-21 NAU)

 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law,
 28 then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,
 29 "Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, According to Your word;
 30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
 31 Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
 32 A LIGHT OF REVELATION TO THE GENTILES, And the glory of Your people Israel." (Lk. 2:27-32 NAU)

Did Jesus, before he ascended, teach Peter about the realities of Gentile salvation, yes or no?  Under biblical inerrancy, the answer would have to be "yes", because Jesus a) had a Gentile ministry, and b) he specifically exhorted Peter along with the other 10 original apostles that they were to take the gospel to the Gentiles:

 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20 NAU)

In Matthew 28:19-20, was the resurrected Jesus exhorting his apostles to engage in a mission they still didn't know how to properly carry out, yes or no?

Did the risen Jesus characterize the future movement of the Holy Spirit in the apostles as empowering them to preach the gospel to the Gentiles?  Under biblical inerrancy, the answer would have to be "yes", because in Acts 1, Jesus links the empowering by the Holy Spirit, not just to the apostles, but to their need to evangelize the "nations":

 4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me;
 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
 6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Acts 1:4-8 NAU)

Did Jesus, at any time between his birth and ascension, ever inform the apostles that Gentile men can be saved without circumcision, yes or no?  

If Jesus really did have the Gentile ministry mentioned in Matthew 4:15, 12:21 and Luke 2:32, it would be rather absurd to say that by some miraculous accident Peter just never noticed the criteria Jesus laid out for Gentile men to be saved and to fellowship with their Jewish fellow believers. 

Holding, like any jailhouse lawyer, intent on making the apostles look as good as possible, will trifle that the only people criticizing Peter in Acts 1:1-3 are followers of the apostles, that way, the stupidity of their anti-Gentile sentiment cannot be linked to the apostles themselves:

1 Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
 2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him,
 3 saying, "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them."
 4 But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence, saying, (Acts 11:1-4 NAU)

Holding will scream his head off that the phrase "those who were circumcised" surely refers to nobody else in the world except the followers of the apostles.  So I have several questions:

In the context, what is the nearest antecedent to "those who were circumcised" (v. 2)?  Wouldn't it be "the apostles and brethren" (v. 1)?    

In Acts 10:45, all the "circumcised believers" were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on Gentiles too.  Why?  Had they been taught by some apostle that Gentiles cannot receive the Holy Spirit?

Why does the Acts-author in 11:1 make a  point of saying the "apostles and brethren" who were throughout Judea "heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God"?  Was there something significant about apostles in Judea hearing that Gentiles had received the word of God?  If so, what?  

John W. Martens, Ph.d,  is a scholar of Paul and biblical interpretation.

Martens analyses Acts 11:1-3 and concludes that identifying the apostles in Judea  (11:1) as those Luke intended to include in the phrase "those who were circumcised" (v. 2), is the best way to read the passage:

According to Luke “the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God” and when “Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” (Acts 11:1-3). Peter then began his “step by step” explanation (Acts 11:4). 

Note the difference between “the apostles and the believers” in Judea who had heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God and the “circumcised believers” who are critical of Peter’s behavior when he went to Jerusalem. Johnson believes that Luke makes a “deliberate distinction” between these two groups and that it implies that the other apostles accepted Peter’s behavior since the Gentiles are described as having “accepted the word of God” (Johnson, Acts, 197). This is only an implication, though, since it is also possible to read the “the apostles and the believers” as the same group which in the next verse is described as the “circumcised believers.” If this is the case, Acts 11:1 simply describes the news drifting back to Judea andActs 11:2 gives us the response of “the apostles and the believers,” here just classified as “circumcised believer.

It is difficult to know which reading is correct, since Peter explains the salvific events among the Gentiles and by the end of the passage (Acts 11:18) they “all” glorify God. It is more likely that this describes “the apostles and the believers” who are themselves also named as “circumcised believers” and are convinced by Peter’s explanation of the Holy Spirit working among the Gentiles. On the other hand, if the “circumcised believers” have been convinced, why was a gathering of the Church necessary, as we will see in Acts 15? 

Mr. Holding, now that you've been informed that properly credentialed bible scholars with expertise in Greek, Paul, early Christianity and bible interpretation methods, agree with me that "It is more likely" that Luke's "they who were circumcised" (11:2) includes at least some of the "apostles" (11:1), will you continue insisting that my interpretation of the passage is moronic?

Yes or no?

my post to Dr. Long on Acts 11:18 and Gentile Salvation

Over at the blog of NT scholar Dr. Phillip J. Long, I posted the following questions and concerns about why the followers of the apostles indicate in Acts 11:18 that Gentile salvation is some new shocking unexpected theological development :

Dr. Long, 

I have argued for years on the basis of Acts 11:18 that God granting to Gentiles the repentance that brings salvation, must have been some new unexpected shocking thing to the Christians listening to Peter give that speech. 

What exactly is Peter's audience discovering? 

That Gentiles can be saved? 

Or the more nuanced discovery that the Gentile salvation they already knew to be available, doesn't require two steps, but only one? 

The wording in 11:18 is, IMO, too simple to justify the latter more nuanced interpretation, so IMO this church is startled to learn that Gentiles can be saved period.
This of course is a serious problem given that these Christians are the results of the labors of the 12 apostles, who surely must have known that Jesus had a major mission to the gentiles (Mark 1:45, Matthew 4:15, 12:21, Luke 2:32). 

Indeed, the risen Christ insisted that his teachings were the basis of all future Gentile salvation/discipleship in the Great Commission, Matthew 28:20. 

So why was Gentile salvation so controversial to these followers of the apostles?
Did the apostles, after being "amazingly transformed" by seeing a resurrected Jesus ordering them to preach salvation to the Gentiles (Matthew 28:20), and after being miraculously filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), end up neglecting the Gentile aspect of the gospel to the point that their immediate followers find Gentile salvation to be this unexpected shocking theological development, as they apparently conclude in Acts 11:18? 

Can we really fix these problems with a quick "the apostles just didn't get it" ? 

If Jesus physically appeared to me and I ran around on the earth with him for three years, then saw him risen from the dead and ordering me to do certain things, it doesn't make sense that I'd be slow to obey or understand what had been drilled into my head for those prior three years.
So it would appear that the anti-Gentile sentiment was not just some questionable misunderstanding by the followers of the apostles, but went back to the apostles themselves (Galatians 2:9, limiting their evangelism to just the Jews, in contradiction to the risen Christ's direct command that they, that is, the 11 original apostles, do the work of the Gentile ministry).

James Patrick Holding's intentional stupidity on the Gentile-salvation implausibility of Acts 11:18

 In April 2017, I published a blog post wherein I argued that according to the way the church in Acts 11:18 responds to Peter's Gentile Salvation vision, neither they nor Peter formerly believed that Gentiles could be saved...a theory that, despite its consistency with the book of Acts up to this point, contradicts the Gentile-friendly Jesus of the gospels, Mark 1:45, Matthew 4:15.

In short, if Peter ran around with Jesus for three years while Jesus preached salvation to Jew and Gentile alike, how could it possibly be that, some years after Jesus died, here in Acts 10-11, Peter needs a special divine revelation in order to convince him of something that Jesus had already made perfectly clear numerous times before...that Gentiles can be saved too?

Is Acts making Peter to be dumber than he really was?

Or are the gospels making out Jesus to be more Gentile-friendly than he really was?

Some inerrantists have answered that despite the obvious reality of Gentile salvation during Jesus ministry, the apostles simply didn't "get it".

That's quite difficult to believe, given the apologetics claim that the disciples were "mightily transformed" by the resurrected Jesus, since it is the resurrected Jesus who, allegedly, told them to preach salvation to Gentiles (Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20).

Since it is unlikely that Peter would need a divine vision of the likes of the one described in Acts 10-11 had he in fact previously saw and heard the resurrected Jesus telling him to preach salvation to the Gentiles, there is an obvious theological inconsistency between Acts and the gospels, of such magnitude that a quick face-saving "they just didn't get it" reply will not suffice.


James Patrick Holding, whose intended audience of admirers can be judged on the basis of the level at which he teaches them (i.e., cartoon videos wholly unsuitable to engage biblical issues in a scholarly or comprehensive way, yeah, those are the kind of people that Holding takes money from), has created yet another childish romp in which he attempts to answer the contentions in my above-referenced post.  I now answer him point by point:

First, as usual, Holding supplies no Christian scholars who support his view.  But a legitimate Christian scholar who once publicly supported Holding, a conservative evangelical inerrantist Dr. Craig Blomberg (author of "Historical Reliability of the Gospels" and author of the New American Commentary on Matthew), correctly told me in a 2015 email that interpretations of scripture that cannot be shown to be supported by real scholars, are suspect because the issues involved will have already been researched and published: 

From: "Blomberg, Craig" <Craig.Blomberg@denverseminary.edu>

To: Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 12:18 PM

Subject: RE: questions on 2nd Timothy 2:24-26

 I answered several of these  questions explicity or implicitly in my previous response.  I don’t care to expand on it much  One can never make absolute statements about Scripture never justifying insulting behavior.  The Twelve are to shake the dust off their feet for those who reject them.  But, in general, we do much better to be positive, except to the ultraconservative Christian who needs to be rebuked. Interpretations that no bona fide scholars anywhere support are likely to be suspect because detailed scholarly studies will have canvased them already.

 Can Mr. Holding quote any Christian scholars to support his premise that the church before Acts 10-11 needed the theological teaching found in Peter's claimed vision?  How could they ever veer off the road and starting falsely believe Gentile salvation was a two-stop transaction, if the apostles had been taught by Christ, as the gospels apparently say he did, that Gentile salvation is a one-stop transaction? 

Second, even assuming Holding's interpretation of Acts 11:18 to be correct, he is still faced with the original problem:  Why was Peter and thus his church in need of being educated that Gentile salvation wasn't a two-stop but a one-stop process?  Did Jesus not make clear during his three years with Peter, exactly what Gentiles must do to be saved?

Did not Peter run around with Jesus for three years prior to the time period reflected in Acts 11?  Did not Jesus preach his gospel to Gentiles to the point of causing massive crowds of them to gather around him (Mark 1:45, Matthew 4:15, Luke 5:15, etc)?  Did not Peter and the apostles receive special preaching power in Acts 2 long before Acts 11?

Why then did Peter need a bizarre vision to be informed of what he would have already known from 3 prior years with Jesus, i.e., that Gentile salvation was a one-stop transaction?  Holding's answer is necessarily deficient because it doesn't get rid of this original problem of implausibility.

Third, video at 1:04, Holding creates a false distinction and asserts that the problem was not one of whether Gentiles can be saved at all, but "how" Gentiles can be saved, i.e., they found at at that point that it was a one-stop transaction (faith in Christ), not a two-stop transaction (circumcision + faith in Christ).

Mr. Holding's distinction is perverting the text.  Here is Acts 11:18 in several translations.  The church was NOT marveling that Gentiles could get saved by the same single-step that Jews could, the church was marveling that Gentiles could get saved at all.

 ESV  Acts 11:18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."

KJV  Acts 11:18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

NAS  Acts 11:18 And when they heard this, they quieted down, and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life."

NAU  Acts 11:18 When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life."

NET  Acts 11:18 When they heard this, they ceased their objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted the repentance that leads to life even to the Gentiles."

NRS  Acts 11:18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."

YLT  Acts 11:18 And they, having heard these things, were silent, and were glorifying God, saying, 'Then, indeed, also to the nations did God give the reformation to life.'

Holding thinks what the church learned here was "Then indeed God hath not required Gentiles to be circumcised, to achieve the repentance that leads to life."

But that's not what the text says.  They are marveling that God has granted Gentiles the repentance that leads to life, period.  The biblical text puts a far more general spin on their marveling.  They are not being taught a nuanced point of doctrine.

Why didn't the church know, before the time period of Acts 11:18, that God hath granted to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life?

Jesus in the gospels made clear how acceptable it is for Jewish Christians to eat with Gentile Christians,

 10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?"
 12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. (Matt. 9:10-12 NAU)

 Contextual support is strong for the view that Acts is telling the reader the original apostles before Acts 11 did not think Gentiles could get saved:  At the beginning of Acts 11, the apostles and brethren who were circumcised were very angry at Peter after they found out he had done something perfectly Christ-like, and went and engaged in table-fellowship with uncircumcised Gentile Cornelius:

 1 Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
 2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him,
 3 saying, "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them."   (Acts 11:1-3 NAU)

The extent of their anger toward Peter for this may be inferred from the fact that 11:18 says after they heard Peter, they "quieted down" (i.e., their initially angry reaction to Peter involved loud voices and possibly screaming).  In their eyes Peter didn't do something merely uncommon, he did something contrary to what they thought was fundamental morality.

Contextual support for the view that 11:18 shows the church suddenly discovering Gentiles could get saved at all, is also found in the verses immediately following 11:18.  The author admits that while there were "some" who departed from Peter and "began" to preach to the Gentiles after this point, most of Peter's audience spoke the word thereafter to "no one except Jews alone."

 18 When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life."
 19 So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone.
 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. (Acts 11:18-20 NAU)

 Fourth, Holding in video at 1:04 ff, says the reader can know from the whole issue as portrayed in Acts and Galatians that the church knew Gentiles could be saved and thus the church had a reason to evangelize them, but Holding reveals his scholarly weakness here, as he knows he is responding to an atheist bible critic who does not believe one can properly interpret Acts 11:18 by presuming as true everything written in Acts and Galatians.  Holding, true to form, chooses the low road and concerns himself only with giving an answer that will sound good to inerrantist-ears, and doesn't really care if the answer is found unpersuasive on the merits by atheists and others who deny bible inerrancy.  

What would Holding think of an atheist who cared only that an argument for bible contradiction sounded good to other atheists, but didn't care that Christian inerrantists found it unpersuasive?  Would he allow them to be this absurdly partisan without insulting them for it?

Holding at 1:30 references Peter's infamously bizarre vision in which the unclean animals represented Gentiles, so that when God says "no longer call unclean that which god has cleansed" (Acts 10:15, 11:9), God is telling Peter that because He has cleansed Gentiles, Peter should adopt a new view about them.

Fair enough, but my original problem with the lack of plausibility remains:  IF Peter and the apostles were creating these converts and church by preaching consistently to their audiences that which Jesus previously taught them according to the 4 canonical gospels, then why is ANYBODY within the post-resurrection church adopting the belief that Gentile salvation requires "two stops" (faith + circumcision)?

Fifth, Holding never answers the obvious question of why the story has Peter learning such a truth by divine revelation as opposed to God merely reminding him of what Jesus preached previously.  Acts is not presenting Gentile Salvation here as something the church needs clarification on, it is presenting Gentile Salvation as something the church did not recognize up until that point.


If Jesus came to earth and physically taught you some doctrinal point for three years, what are the odds that within a few years after he left you, you'd adopt a misunderstanding of the view so obtusely that only a separate independent divine revelation would correct you?


Holding at 1:40 ff says it's an even stupider idea to say that some early Christians held to anti-Gentile sentiments.  Then apparently he needs to read Acts, since he apparently never noticed the following passages:

 1 Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
 2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him,
 3 saying, "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them." (Acts 11:1-3 NAU)

Jewish Christians who get so angry when one from their group eats with a Gentiles, clearly adopt "anti-Gentile sentiment".

Holding at 1:47 ff, tries to explain the failure of the early post-resurrection church to evangelize Gentiles by saying most of the apostles only spoke Aramaic or Hebrew.

So again, he apparently has never read that part of Acts where God demolishes the language barrier between the Aramaic-speaking apostles and the Gentiles who spoke other languages.  Acts 2, Pentecost.

Ironically, Acts 2 seems to show anti-Gentile sentiment, for while the new languages the apostles learned would allow them to communicate beneficially with Gentile pagans, Acts 2 makes it clear that it was only Jews and their proselytes who were intended to benefit from the busting of this language barrier:

 5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.
 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.
 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
 8 "And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?
 9 "Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
 11 Cretans and Arabs-- we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God."
 12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"
 13 But others were mocking and saying, "They are full of sweet wine."
 14 But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: "Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem,  (Acts 2:5-14 NAU)

In context, Peter's sermon was not addressed to just anybody and everybody who might happen to be living in Jerusalem...it was addressed to Jews and their proselytes (Gentiles who had converted to Judaism).

That is, the author of Acts wants the reader to believe that this earliest preaching was Jew-centered, which, again, does not square with their having heard a resurrected Jesus tell them to evangelize Gentiles just a few days prior Matthew 28:19-20.

Holding also doesn't consider that the apostles simply did not want to have a gentile ministry.  He tells the reader they can figure out the problem by reading Galatians, but look what I found in Galatians 2:9

 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Gal. 2:9 NAU)

Why did the apostles give Paul the right-hand of fellowship?  Because it relieved them of any need to evangelize Gentiles, that's why.  Again, we find strong hints that the view of the earliest post-resurrection apostles was NOT to preach the gospel to just whoever happened to come into their life, but to preach to the Jews only.

Is it just coincidence that apostle James in Acts 21:20 heads a Jersualem church filled with thousands of Jews who, despite their conversion to Christianity, continue to be zealous to do the Law?

 17 After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.
 18 And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
 19 After he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
 20 And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law;
 21 and they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs.
 22 "What, then, is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.
 23 "Therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;
 24 take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law. (Acts 21:17-24 NAU)

If James had preached the same Gentile-friendly "Christ-is-the-end-of-the-Law" gospel to Jews that Paul preached, how is it that those who join James's church look and sound so much like Judaizers?

Notice how Paul describes Peter in Galatians 2:14, then you tell me whether Peter too became a Judaizer:

14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
 15 "We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; (Gal. 2:14-15 NAU)

And this "right hand of fellowship" alleged in Gal 2:9 was likely nothing more than a superficial agreement given that around a.d. 40-45 there was a severe famine in the land (Acts 11:28), at which point if the original apostles got too loud about about their Judaizer doctrine, they would be turning away a Gentile mission field likely to help increase the church's wealth.

Yes, there was more than likely a financial reason for the apostles being willing for Paul to pervert their legalistic doctrine to make it more acceptable to additional potential tithers in the Gentile lands:

 1 Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also.
 2 On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.
 3 When I arrive, whomever you may approve, I will send them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem; (1 Cor. 16:1-3 NAU)

 29 And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea.
 30 And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. (Acts 11:29-30 NAU)

So I have no trouble believing that the apostles thought Paul a heretic the whole time, but nevertheless pretended to make him part of the club anyway.  People tend to forget their higher ideals and forgive their enemies when they start needing each other to survive.  If a white supremacist was drowning and there was none to save him except an African-American lifeguard...people tend to be less idealistic when greater liberality will help them survive.  And given the apologists who readily admit to Peter's gullibility, the apostles were human in every way, with no sign that they were free from the tendency to make concessions on doctrine or morals for the sake of the greater good.

It is a great irony that at the end of this simple-minded cartoon video showing no sign of scholarly rigor, Holding accuses my views of being "simple-minded".  While Holding, using insulting language, deceives his followers into thinking my views about Paul v. the Apostles are obvious shams, true scholars of the evangelical inerrantist persuasion admit that such views created a paradigm shift in biblical studies when F.C. Baur began teaching them in the 19th century, which would hardly be the case if such views were "obviously" wrong:

During the Reformation, Luther and Calvin also accepted the traditional view and passed it along unaltered except that they (especially Luther) found a direct analogy between Paul’s opponents in Galatia and those who refused to embrace the gospel of grace in their own day. Calvin, for example, referred to them as “the false apostles, who had deceived the Galatians to advance their own claims, pretending that they had received a commission from the apostles. Their method of infiltration was to convince people that they represented the apostles and delivered a message from them. But they took away from Paul the name and authority of apostle … in attacking Paul they were really attacking the truth of the gospel.” This view remained virtually unchallenged until the nineteenth century when F. C. Baur offered his radical reconstruction of New Testament history. Since then the identity of the anti-Pauline opposition in Galatia has generated considerable debate and spawned numerous theories, the most important of which fall into the following five groupings..

George, T. (2001, c1994). Vol. 30: Galatians (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;The New American Commentary (Page 51). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Since the time of F. C. Baur in the early nineteenth century, Galatians has been a battleground for modern historical reconstructions of New Testament history and theology.

George, T. (2001, c1994). Vol. 30: Galatians

According to Mr. Simplistic himself, Mr. Holding, he must think all these biblical scholars are doing battle over matters that are easy for believers in bible inerrancy to resolve.  Gee, is life really the way 3 year old children view it?

Need more?  The whole point of Paul in writing Galatians was because most of that church had apostatized from Paul and taken up the Judaizer gospel (Gal. 1:6).  The Judaizers were so successful that "even Barnabas" agreed with the Judaizer views against Paul (2:13), despite the allegation that it was the Holy Spirit who personally selected Barnabas to assist in Paul's ministry (Acts 13:2).  Why are you so impressed with Paul 2,000 years after the fact, when not only his contemporaries but even many of those who once converted to his gospel, stopped thinking him to be the inerrant truth-robot you think he is?

Need more?  Peter's "fearing the circumcision" (i.e., the "men from James") in Gal. 2:12 doesn't make sense if those men were misrepresenting James's view, since Peter obviously knew James personally, and thus would know whether the legalism of these "men from James" authentically originated with James or their own errors of doctrine.  The only way to make sense of Peter's fear here and his going on to become a Judaizer himself (2:14, "why do you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews?"), is if he knew the "men from James" were correctly representing James' views.  Another way of saying this is that Acts 15:24 is a lie written by a liar trying to make the reader think James was more sympathetic to Paul's Gentile-gospel than he really was.

Need more?   The Revelation author, writing so late in the first century as most scholars agree, surely knew about Paul and thus likely also knew of Paul's having claimed to be equal with the apostles in terms of work done to lay the foundation of the metaphorical Christian city:

 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
(1 Cor. 15:10 NAU)

 5 For I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles.
(2 Cor. 11:5 NAU)

 Don't you find it just a bit curious, then, that, despite writing so late and knowing this about Paul, the author of Revelation 21:14 uses the number12 more than necessary to specify how Christianity, as the metaphorical City, sits upon 12 foundation stones having the 12 names of the 12 apostles in them?

Possible Objection:  The number 12 here is mere figurative language, so it cannot mathematically exclude Paul, Apostle # 13.
Answer: no, there really were exactly 12 apostles each with a different name, so the fact they can be used to support a metaphorical point doesn't mean the author's choice to refer to "12 apostles" is also figurative. Calling somebody an "asshole" might be an acceptable metaphor for them, but that hardly argues that the person himself is just as figurative. 

Possible Objection:  Paul was Apostle # 12.
Answer: no, Matthias was # 12 before Paul converted, see Acts 1:26

Possible Objection:  The appointment of Matthias as apostle # 12 was against the will of God.
Answer: First, the arguments for this position are incredibly weak.  Second, the circumstances surrounding Matthias' appointment as # 12 rebut this claim.  Here is the full context from Acts 1, with highlighting for those parts that indicate Matthias' appointment was God's will:

 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.
 13 When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.
 14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
 15 At this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together), and said,
 16 "Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
 17 "For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry."
 18 (Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.
 19 And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem; so that in their own language that field was called Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
 20 "For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'LET HIS HOMESTEAD BE MADE DESOLATE, AND LET NO ONE DWELL IN IT'; and, 'LET ANOTHER MAN TAKE HIS OFFICE.'
 21 "Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us--
 22 beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us-- one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection."
 23 So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias.
 24 And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen
 25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place."
 26 And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:12-26 NAU)

All of Christianity's main post-resurrection players were present, Peter is apparently speaking with authority from God after they all devoted themselves to prayer, because he credits Judas' fall to fulfillment of an OT verse that without his input doesn't look like a prediction that Judas will fall, Peter thinks it necessary that somebody "must" be a witness # 12, they all set forth two possible candidates, they all pray for God to reveal which one it shall be, then they "cast lots" to determine God's will, which was the way the divine will was determined with approval in the OT (Prov. 16:33).

Apologists who decry Matthias' election so they can escape admitting the Revelation author mathematically excluded Paul, are exhibiting more desperation and less scholarly objectivity.  But who cares?  If Holding can get a bunch of losers to send him money, he would have to have an unusual amount of moral backbone to send it back, saying he can conduct his own ministry on his own dime, wouldn't he?  We don't expect miracles from modern-day apologists, do we?

Therefore, Paul remains Apostle # 13, and hence, the Revelation author's deliberate choice to set the number of Christianity-founding apostles at "12" continues to constitute his knowing and intentional mathematical exclusion of Paul.

Need more?  Peter and the church in Acts 1 clearly do not think "apostle" can be a title for just anybody who has seen the resurrected Jesus and wants to go around preaching it, but they think that title can only go to somebody who learned from the human Jesus for the three years before Jesus died (Acts 1:21).  Paul disagrees and insists that his apostleship finds sufficient grounding in his claim to have seen the resurrected Jesus:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? (1 Cor. 9:1 NAU)

 Need more?   The Revelation author admits the Church in Ephesus was one that had to deal with false apostles in the past:

"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:
 2 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. (Rev. 2:1-3 NAU)

It just so happens that Paul believed himself to be a legitimate apostle to the church in Ephesus, and it also just so happens that Paul told that church that after he left them, "savage wolves" (i.e., other Christian ministers who disagreed very much with Paul's beliefs) would infiltrate that church and convince them to apostatize from Paul's doctrine:

 29 "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
 30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30 NAU)

Given the Revelation author's previously established mathematical exclusion of Paul Apostle # 13 from the group he thinks established Christianity in the earth, it really isn't too much of a stretch to say the church in Ephesus did indeed, after Paul left, do what the Galatian churches did, and apostatize from Paul's beliefs, and therefore, it is their disposing of Paul which the Revelation author is talking about when saying that church tested apostles and found them false.

Oh sure, Mr. Holding...your looney toons yapping in effort to answer the Acts 11:18 plausibility problem, has me quaking in my boots.  Not all Christians believe the Problem of Paul can be as easily resolved as your childish antics indicate.  Let God's spiritually alive followers get their act together, before they stupidly insist that spiritually dead atheists should be able to see truths that spiritually alive people themselves cannot even agree on.

What now?  Will you say all Christian scholars who disagree with you about Paul, are thus not true Christians?  Since when did YOU become the criteria for salvation?  But that assumes you care about adopting a crazy belief, and the evidence is clear that you don't.  You've dedicated your life to defending the divine authenticity of the bible, while also not caring whether it is divinely authentic.  You have to be mentally consistent before we can expect you to worry when you get something wrong.

Yeah, cartoon apologetics produced by a disgraced homosexual who surrounds himself with people equally as spiritually immature as himself,  a person whose favorite scholars say he "obviously perverts" their scholarship and the NT......now there's somebody who's a real threat to my bible-criticizing peace of mind.
FUCK YOU.

Answering "Tough Questions Answered" on Gentile salvation

This is my reply to a "Tough Questions Answered" article entitled:

Commentary on Acts 10 (Gentile Pentecost)

Posted: 04 Aug 2017 06:00 AM PDT

I skip most of the article because I'm only interested in the part that makes the least bit of sense:

While Peter is speaking, he is interrupted by the Holy Spirit pouring into the Gentiles in Cornelius’ house. The Jewish companions of Peter are amazed at what is happening. Arnold explains:

    The Torah-observant Jews recognize the remarkable significance of this event. God is now accepting Gentiles on the same basis that he did the Jews—on the sole basis of believing in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. These Gentile believers will not be required to be circumcised, offer sacrifices, observe the Jewish festivals, or keep Jewish dietary laws as a means of entering or maintaining their position in the new people of God.

Arnold has apparently forgotten the entire gospel history.  Jesus had a mission to Gentiles no less than he had to Jews: Mark 1:45, Matthew 4:15, etc.  The idea that Jesus never told anybody how Gentiles could get saved until God gave the Acts 10 vision to Peter, is total bullshit if the gospel histories are true.

Seeing this, Peter commands his companions to baptize these Gentiles in the name of Jesus Christ. Darrell Bock, in Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, summarizes:

    God directs an epoch-making event in which Gentiles are accepted in fellowship and receive the gospel.

Say what?  How can acceptance of Gentiles at this point in Peter's life in Acts 10-11 be anything close to "epoch", when the 4 canonical gospels make clear that Jesus did a substantial amount of preaching among Gentiles?  It is my contention that somebody is lying:  If Jesus really had such a Gentile ministry, Gentile salvation would not have been regarded as a new theological development to Peter or the rest of the church as late in the game as Acts 10-11, so either a) the gospels are lying and Jesus preached only to Jews, or b) Acts is lying and painting Peter and the church as nearly universally Jew-oriented.

Their faith leads to the gift of the Spirit, the sign that the new era has arrived. In addition, they are not circumcised and yet table fellowship and full hospitality between Jews and Gentiles ensues.

 Well excuse me, but I would have figured that if Jesus had a Gentile ministry as Matthew 4:15 says he did, the question of whether Jewish Christians could have table fellowship with uncircumcised Gentile Christians would have been resolved before Jesus died, for how could it be otherwise?  Sorry, somebody in the bible, either the gospel authors, or the author of Acts 10-11, is lying about how things really happened.

    The Trinity is quite active here (Gaventa 2003: 173–74). God takes the initiative. Jesus Christ is at the center of the plan. The Spirit confirms that all of this is God’s work. The actions that take place represent the act and will of God working in harmony. The church does not lead here but follows God’s leading, thereby learning a great deal about how God views people.

How much did Peter and the apostles learn about how God views people, during Jesus' three year ministry?  A lot?  A little?  Did anybody think to ask the obvious gentile question before Jesus died?