Libel lawsuit: court approves of my request to file ECF

James Patrick Holding assured his readers, in the comment section of a youtube video, that they could consult his channel for "updates" on my libel lawsuit against him.

For unknown reasons, those comments have disappeared. 

My blog won't disappear however, and readers can stay updated here.

Since readers might wish to talk about or dispute any specific update, I will be creating new posts for each update in the future instead of just modifying one post and making it longer and longer.

Here's where we are so far:

• I filed the original complaint in court.  
• I sought to have the filing fee waived, which means the court must review the Complaint for possible frivolity or other problems before waiving the filing fee.
• The magistrate judge threatened dismissal with an Order using vague language accusing my Complaint of "loosely" alleging facts but not in any coherent complete fashion, and gave me a chance to "amend" the Complaint to cure such alleged pleading defects.
• I filed a motion for reconsideration of that Order, but in an abundance of caution, also filed a 1st Amended Complaint just to leave the Court one less excuse to tank the case.
• The court denied my motion for reconsideration, without going into why I was wrong to accuse the Order of being directly contrary to clear and binding precedent that requires liberality be extended toward "pro se" litigants.
• As of today, May 10, 2019, the Court  granted my motion to proceed in forma pauperis (i.e., waiving the filing fee).
• Granting such a motion means the Court also waived the expense of service of process, and directs the Clerk to assign a federal marshal to serve the papers on Defendant Apologetics Afield. 
• So if you were wondering why Mr. Mouthy Narcissitic Asshole Apologist suddenly got all demure in the last month or so and stopped yapping so frequently about the lawsuit, now you know why.  It looked for a while like Holding would get his wish and the Court would, again, tank my lawsuit on unjustified grounds.
• Now that Holding's dreams have had their brains bashed out against the rocks (Psalm 137:9), yes, we fully expect Mr. Mouth to suddenly discover that God has suddenly decided that he go back to being Mr. Mouth again.
• Then again, I sued Holding in a way that forced him to hire a real lawyer...and since Holding earlier testified on YouTube that his prior lawyer didn't see things his way and had to tell Holding things he didn't wish to hear, there's a fair chance that if Mr. Mouth doesn't return to his insulting ways, its because his lawyer has told him what his prior lawyer told him...Shut the fuck up with all of this online pestering of Doscher, it only makes it seem Doscher's criticism of you as an incorrigable know-it-all unlikely to change his ways, is correct, and might make the jury think only a higher amount of punitive damages has any hope of setting your stupid ass straight for the first time in your life.

(you can also watch the updates for free either at PacerMonitor here, or go to the Florida Middle District "recent opinion" page here and search the case titles for "Doscher", and if they have uploaded any order in the case, you'll get a pdf of the entire order)

For obvious reasons, I won't be making available online all of the material I plan to use or argue; no attorney in the world would say "yeah, just thrust everything in your argument out on the internet to satisfy the Christians infected with the Jerry Springer demon"

The link to my original Complaint is here.

The link to my motion for reconsideration and 1st Amended Complaint is here.

A rather comprehensive list of Holding's gayness and spiritual immaturity was recorded in the extensive Complaint I filed in the 2016 lawsuit. That Complaint and more can be downloaded from here.

I was going to post a bit more commentary, but for reasons I cannot disclose, I decline.  What I've already posted should give a fair clue as to the shit-storm Holding created for himself.  See here.

Since I presume Holding's followers will likely wish to dispute specific case developments that happen to go in my favor, I'll be making separate posts for all future updates.  Then again, Holding has probably already notified his pussy-followers than his lawyer recommends they not engage with me.  Which means they are more willing to follow worldly advice from non-Christian lawyers, than they are willing to act according to the "fuck you" style of apologetics they usually employ everywhere else on the internet.

New Reply to James Patrick Holding's unconvincing backpeddling

Since I began showing the world in 2008 what a piece of shit scumbag James Patrick Holding really is by reason of his absurd Harsh Language article, and other similar online screeds, he has changed the wording in that article several times.  I respond to it point-by-point below:

Printed from http://tektonics.org/madmad.php

As of 9/2/2017, Barry Jones, aka turchisrong, owes me $24,074.35. When is he going to pay his bills?

I'm never going to pay that bill.  You will simply a) update the amount each year, and b) suffer from incessant questions as to why Licona and other legitimately credentialed Christian apologists started wanting nothing to do with you soon after my libel lawsuits against you became public knowledge.  Jesus would never agree with you that because a secular judge awarded you fees, you must have deserved those fees.  Yet you hold up this granting of fees as if lower court judges are incapable of getting things wrong.  If you supplied to your followers ALL of the briefing that I filed and you filed which led up to that court judgment, they would notice that the judge ignored mandatory precedent numerous times.

But no, I'm sure that your drooling followers, so quick to presume you innocent and me guilty, find it more important to remain ignorant and thus comfortable, rather than educate themselves on what really went down, and thus take the risk of finding out this court judgment was immoral and unlawful.

The Christian and Harsh Language

There’s a particularly moronic notion that some people might come up with in response to what is below. They might ask if the Context Group (whose work I cite below) agrees with what I’m saying here, and think that actually is a meaningful question. It’s not.

Yeah right. Asking whether the scholar whose work you use, drew the same conclusion from his work that you did, this is a "moronic" question that is not "meaningful".  Are you drunk?  Dr. Rohrbaugh certainly thought it significant that you draw a different conclusion from his work than he did.  He said your article (the one I'm refuting right now) was a perversion of the New Testament, ALL Context Group work, and particularly a perversion of his own work.  The issue is why Rohrbaugh finds it so "obvious" that you have "perverted" Context Group scholarship, if in fact all you doing is drawing a different conclusion from it than he does.

The Context Group certainly agrees that riposte was the norm in Biblical times, which is the single and sole point that I derive from them.

 Which is to your disgrace, since you take what you 'derive' from them and use it to justify the type of slanderous talk that most mature Christian scholars quickly classify as sinful.  Rohrbaugh even said this article of yours was so bad, it didn't even merit a response, he said it would be a waste of his time.

And once again, it doesn't matter that riposte was normal in biblical times.  YOUR particular brand of riposte often involves sexually inappropriate slurs and is otherwise sufficiently extreme as to qualify as "slander", a thing the bible repeatedly prohibits (Mark 7:22-23, Ephesians 4:31), and lets not forget that Michael the Archangel did not bring a railing accusation against even the devil, 

  7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
 8 Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.
 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
 10 But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. (Jude 1:7-10 NAU)

 ...despite the availability of arguments that the devil so often publicly slanders Christianity that publicly slandering him back might constitute justified "riposte".

What they may not agree with me on is whether it is appropriate today. I don't disagree with their interpretations. I disagree with their applications. I don't draw conclusions about those applications from their research. I do that on my own. And if they think what I argue is a perversion of their work, then it's likely they've been grossly misinformed by a tendentious source that is giving them leading information to draw out a desired opinion.

No, there you are lying again.  You know perfectly well that the reason Rohrbaugh steamrolled you in 2008 was because I had emailed him a cut and paste from one of our debates where you were gratuitously insulting me in ways that mature Christian scholars find to be a shocking violation of basic NT ethics. 

For those interested, my 2008 correspondence with Rohrbaugh, including Rohrbaugh's comments to the effect that James Patrick Holding gives Christianity a bad name and is just a boor with no manners who doesn't deserve to be given the time of day, is publicly documented here.

Furthermore, in 2015, I emailed to Rohrbaugh a link to your "Harsh Language" article, and his reply email is the one where he said your "harsh language"  article was a perversion of the New Testament, Context Group work in general, and his own scholarship in particular.  This and more is all documented here.

Holding continues: 

But that said, so what if they don't like my applications? I would say in reply: That’s their problem, not mine.

So apparently, if a skeptic uses a "that's your problem not mine" excuse, you approve.

Last I checked, Rohrbaugh, for example, thinks the book of Nahum is too nasty and should be removed from the canon. That’s obviously a position I don’t agree with, and it's not a matter of intellectual deficiency for Rohrbaugh to hold that view since the key facts (such as that Nahum has harsh language) are not in dispute. Rohrbaugh's view on Nahum is a moral decision he makes based on his own preferences.

It's also a moral decision he makes as a person who has been a Christian for many decades.  Sorry, Holding, but you are going to have to say Rohrbaugh went for decades as a Christian without ever noticing that the bible justifies modern-day Christians to use sexually inappropriate slurs the way you do.  Rohrbaugh's long experience with and scholarly-level knowledge of the bible are also part of the reason he finds your slurs to be so devilish.

Or have you stopped slandering people now that your dark side was brought into light through the Courts, and you can no longer get away with posting filthy language online?   I have to wonder how many of your former mentally comatose followers started obsessing in Googling your name and mine, after I fucked up  your image over at theologyweb.

I do think those preferences are absurd, narrow-minded and out of touch.

What we learn from the world's foremost Christian apologist, then, is that even if we skeptics get our Ph.d's in some area of study associated with the sociology of the biblical world, and even if we also become Christians sufficiently that we end up writing scholarly tomes on the bible that are well-respected among bible scholars, we can still end up drawing conclusions that are absurd, narrow-minded, and out of touch.

Sounds to me like biblical issues are fatally ambiguous, thus justifying refusal to bother with that stupid bullshit, unless one does it solely as a personal intellectual hobby, like me.

I would even go so far as to say that such views about the canon are a perversion, and that Rohrbaugh is guilty of perverting the truth to that extent.

 That phrase wasn't included in your earlier editions of this article. But your late choice to say "perversion" appears to be biting back at Rohrbaugh, who himself was the first to use that word in this controversy, using it to characterize YOUR article. 

And there you are, the old J.P. Holding, returning insult for insult, doing exactly what the Context Group says constitutes a perversion of the bible and their own work.

What we further learn is that even if we skeptics accept Jesus, become educated in apologetics and then for 20 years thereafter operate a website that answers skeptical objections to Christianity, boasting of how scholarly we are the whole time,  we might still end up getting an "F" in Basic New Testament Ethics 101.

And the reason that often happens is because there is no Holy Spirit to effect spiritual growth in anybody in the first place. THAT is how you can be intensely involved in Christian defense for 20 years and yet miss the forest for the trees the entire time.

But the bottom line is: I agree with their findings, and I don't think they misinterpret the New Testament.

Well they sure said you "pervert" the New Testament.

However, I also don’t agree with all of their applications of those findings. There’s a huge difference, and very simple minds may not grasp that difference.

Then stop presenting biblical issues in the format of YouTube cartoons catering toward 40-year old adolescents, and maybe the juvenile delinquents who think you died for their sins will discover how the Holy Spirit kept Christians interested in his work for 2,000 years without needing internet bells and whistles and cartoon sound effects to overcome their inherent lazines, you stupid cocksucker. 

They also fail to grasp that it is quite possible for someone like Rohrbaugh to be judiciously informed on one matter while being profoundly ignorant on other matters. (This in contrast to fundy atheists, who are profoundly ignorant about just about everything.)

You weren't leaving room for Rohrbaugh to be "profoundly ignorant" on other matters back in 2008, when you were lauding his bible expertise and using some things he said to justify your slandering of other people.  Now that you've been steamrolled by the scholar you quoted the most for this stupid childish bullshit, suddenly, you remind the world that Rohrbaugh isn't perfect.  

Ha Ha, you are ANYTHING but a threat to bible critics.  And nothing spells "Emergency! Clam up! Emergency!" quite like your blocking my ISP from being able to access your website.  You are like the child during a fight saying "I'm not scared of you" while running away from the attacker.  You cannot escape the fact that talk is cheap; your actions speak louder than your words.

However, if any of the Context Group ever wished to argue that such language is inappropriate today, my reply is that they need to mind their own business and look past the rarified confines of academia.

And according to you that would also require that they abandon the basic morals they learned as children, and become willing to libel others in spite of the bible's many prohibitions against "slander".

Scholars like Malina and Rohrbaugh don’t spend any time confronting atheist idiots like DarkMatter2525 or NonStampcollector.

Probably because these well-qualified bible scholars have never seen any justification in the bible for spending their time confronting atheist "idiots".  So if you see such justification in the bible for this activity, the reader has to decide who is more likely to have gotten the biblical message correctly, qualified bible scholars, or one lone ranger on the internet who lost the support of his own favorite scholars when truth was brought to light in two libel lawsuits. Gee, that's a hard one.

They’ve never engaged in forum debate with lunatic fundy atheists who keep quoting Thomas Paine as an authority on the formation of the canon, or who have some sort of personality disorder and keep posting mile-long blog entries no one ever reads, or who have never done anything with their lives except work as day laborers or truck drivers and sit around collecting government checks and don’t have a job while they otherwise rack up huge six-figure debts they can’t pay off.

It appears you haven't learned your lesson perfectly, but you've certainly learned some of it.   Your subtle reserved language about me, and refusal to specifically mention my name, is in sharp contradiction to the demon-possessed three year old who was operating your website in 2015, and who slandered me hundreds of times over because of his psychotically narcissistic inability to recognize his own stupidity.  I was correct:  You are such an obstinate fuck, it really does take the extreme measure of kicking your head in, and causing you to associate pain with your stupid choices, to get you to calm down, since trying to convince you on a purely intellectual level is like trying to convince an alligator to repent and believe the gospel.  Your brain simply doesn't have the hard-wiring necessary to enable to you give a fuck about being wrong.  You missed your calling, Holding, you should have been a lawyer.  They too give a shit far more about how to trifle this and that, than about actual truth.

They also, not shockingly, never appeal to the Bible as authoritative justification for their views about modern behavior (because as the Nahum example shows, the Bible isn't their chief defining authority).

What skeptics learn here is that even if we became Christians and became as smart as Rohrbaugh, there is no guarantee we'd adopt the view of the bible God wants Christians to adopt...thus justifying the average unbeliever to say "fuck you" to any Christian challenge to learn biblical things.

They don't think Nahum is a good example for us. So of course the Bible isn't their final word as a moral guide.

And with all of your unbiblical slandering of other people, the bible apparently isn't your final word as a moral guide either.

It's also relevant that they aren't out there like the fundy atheists peddling their views deceptively and in gross ignorance.

Preaching to the choir.  You are scared blind of challenging me with any of your apologetics dogshit, you know you'll get steamrolled.  Most Christian apologists do not intentionally configure their website to make it inaccessible to certain people.  But you sure do.

If any Context Group member doesn’t think there’s a place for hard language today, good for them – they need to get out more.

If any internet apologist thinks there IS a place for hard language today, good for them --  they need to get out more.  Isn't  it funny that your excuses always sound stupid when anybody else use them? 

They are far from being my favorite Bible scholars, nor have I ever worshiped the ground they walk on; nor do I quote them the most on this website.

That's irrelevant, you weren't expressing or implying any of this backtracking in 2008 before you found out Rohrbaugh thinks you give Christianity a bad name.   I'm happy to infer from your constantly modifying this article that behind the scenes your followers have serious problems with you, sufficient to get you to constantly update this article. 

I respect their expertise and use it, but I can use the research of the Context Group even if they disapprove of my views and the way I apply that research.

The issue is not what you are "allowed" to do with somebody else's research.  

The issue is why the authors of that research complain that your use of their research constitutes an "obvious perversion" of it.  You cannot get rid of Rohrbaugh's Christian moral view by simply noting that somebody can be smart in one area and judiciously ignorant in another.  Rohrbaugh clearly thought your slanders were a violation of basic NT ethics, it was the equivalent of him feeling compelled to say that another Christian doesn't recognize that stealing is unbiblical.  One of you is not just in the wrong, but in the wrong so deep that it can only be explained by brick-level stupidity, or willingness to violate clear NT ethics.  I let the reader judge which extreme you are.

For the record, no Context Group member has ever written to me about any of this.

Because Rohrbaugh said a reply to your article wasn't worth his time.

The better question is whether you did the scholarly thing, and contacted Rohrbaugh to clarify his views about you.  In 2008, you pretended that you'd never contact him because he was too busy to worry about other people's personal problems, but on the contrary, Rohrbaugh's views of you are so low, he was effectively asserting that you sinned against him by "obviously perverting" his scholarship... just a modern way of making a claim that you are a false witness.  So unless you wish to go all the way into the liberal toilet and claim that even if you sin against somebody, there's no need to discuss it with them personally...then you don't have a choice, you have a biblical obligation to personally communicate with and seek forgiveness of, those who charge you with being a false witness.

And we all know that the real reason you didn't attempt any such contact is because you were genuinely fearful that Rohrbaugh would simply castigate you more and confirm that what I was putting out on the internet was accurate.

And if they ever did, I'd invite them to spend a few hours on YouTube and get some eye-openers.

That's rather stupid given that you've been made aware they think such conduct is wasteful.

But I don't expect they'd waste their time anyway. Rohrbaugh is in his 90s, and it is absurd to think that he or any of the other distinguished academics that are part of the Context Group spend any time trolling YouTube channels.

Good call.  It's more reasonable to assume only dumbfuck assholes who think of themselves as the center of the universe, would go around trolling YouTube channels looking for skeptics to refute.  Did you ever look in a mirror, or did your therapist insist that you need to start spending less time gloating over yourself?

Correcting Craig Blomberg on Matthew 5:22: it;s not *usually* wrong, but *always* wrong, to insult another person

Jesus forbade his followers from referring to each other as "fools" and the like:

 21 "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER ' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'
 22 "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matt. 5:21-22 NAU)

Craig Blomberg says there must be an implied qualification of "where unjustified" to the v. 22 prohibition on calling another a "good-for-nothing".  Blomberg cites to Jesus himself labeling certain others with similar language as the reason to read at qualification into 5:22:

Jesus illustrates his point that not just murder but also anger is sinful in two additional, parallel ways. First, he considers those who accost their fellow believers with the epithet “Raca” (a quasi-swear word in Aramaic). The expression probably meant something like empty-headed.33 So too those who call someone a “fool” commit a sin. This word (mōros) carries overtones of immorality and godlessness as well as idiocy. As with the commands against anger, both of these prohibitions against the use of insulting names undoubtedly carried the implicit qualification of “where unjustified,” since Jesus himself uses the term mōros in 23:17, 19 (in direct address) and in 7:26 (in indirect address) when the label is accurate. Some have seen an increasing severity of judgment as Jesus progresses from the terms “judgment” to “the Sanhedrin” (the Jewish supreme court) to Gehenna (“fire of hell”)—a reference to the valley south of Jerusalem in which children were slaughtered in Old Testament times and traditionally associated with a perpetually burning garbage dump in later centuries. But given the close parallelism among the first clauses of each illustration, the entire sentences should probably be taken as largely synonymous. All three metaphorically refer to the danger of eternal judgment.
Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 107). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

I maintain that common sense refutes Blomberg on this point:

First, Jesus doesn't say the offender would be put on trial in the court for hurling such names at another, he says the offender would be guilty before the Court for saying "raca" and guilty enough to go into fiery hell for calling another a "fool".  Apparently, insulting another in that society was prohibited either without exception, or if exceptions were allowed, Jesus didn't allow for them.  The immediate context thus supports an absolute interpretation and the burden of proof is on any who would say the immediate context supports a relative interpretation.

Second, by saying "where unjustified" Blomberg gives the genuinely guilty offender an alibi:  he's not in the wrong because the person he insulted really was a fool.  Does Blomberg seriously believe that Jesus would approve of Christians fighting amongst themselves on whether or not a specific Christian deserved to be called a "fool"?  Does the immediate context of Jesus' mandate suggest any such exceptions or caveats? Of course not.

Third, the fact that Jesus called others fools provides no contextual backdrop, as Blomberg thinks Jesus is God.  Just because God does something doesn't necessarily mean Christians should imitate it, such as when God inflicts a terrible sickness on a baby and causes it to suffer for 7 days before killing it:

 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. (2 Sam. 12:15-18 NAU)

So without more, a mere "Jesus did it so why can't I do it too!" doesn't provide automatic justification for Christians to imitate it.   Jesus also died and raised himself from the dead, allegedly...does that mean Christians should do this too? Jesus also forgave sins not committed against him.  Can Christians forgive the sins not committed against them?  Catholics say yes, how about you?

Fourth, the NT comes to us from the first-century honor/shame societies of the Jews and Romans.  Had God decided not to start Christianity until 1980, and got pregnant some teen girl named Mary living in Tacoma Washington that year, it is beyond question that the NT arising from this circumstance would contain none of the honor/shame bullshit that it does, as Tacoma in 1980 wasn't an honor/shame society or city.  If that raises problematic questions as to how much of the 1st century NT ways of doing things that God wants modern day Christians to imitate/obey, that's Blomberg's problem, not mine.  If God transcends culture, then we have to believe that the honor/shame crap in the NT has more to do with the people involved in Christianity's origin, and less to do with the God who arbitrarily chose which exact culture and time-period in which to start that religion.  

Seems pretty clear to me that if Jesus was born and raised in Tacoma Washington in the 1980's, and then gave his Sermon on the Mount in 2000, it would be stripped of all honor/shame baggage that sermon currently has.  The bible does not require us to imitate the social realities of dead cultures.

Fifth, Blomberg is an inerrantist, and so he must reconcile what he has to say with the rest of the NT, and unfortunately, there are passages that impose on Christians an exceptionless mandate to avoid insulting words, behavior:

8 To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
 9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. (1 Pet. 3:8-9 NAU)

Sixth, most Christians, at least in developed countries, were not born and raised in honor/shame cultures, and therefore, dealing with them today the way people were dealt with by 1st century Jews could be psychologically harmful.

Finally, Jude v. 8-10 contradict Blomberg's idea that an insulting accusation is allowed where it describes the target truthfully.  The devil is obviously deserving of many truthful railing accusations, but not even Michael the Archangel dared to accuse the devil with such condescension:

 8 Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.
 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" (Jude 1:8-9 NAU)

Well, Mr. Blomberg?  If Michael the Arch-angel had called the devil and foolish stupid idiot moron, would that be an accurate description?  If so, how do you explain Mike's failure to call names even where justified? Could it be that you were too quick to conclude Christians are morally justified to imitate just anything Jesus did?

Like most apologists, Blomberg may say that those outside the church are fools if they know what's being taught and reject it, since he thinks there can be no reasonable skepticism of the gospel, but unfortunately, Christians and especially their leaders are to maintain a good relationship with non-Christians:

 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:7 NAU)

How could Timothy have maintained a good reputation with those outside the church, if he exercised that right you believe he had (i.e., to label as fools all those who know the gospel but reject it anyway)?

1st century Christianity was a high-context society, so that the mandate to maintain a good reputation with unbelievers more than likely included even specific unbelievers who lived nearest too Timothy, and thus were well aware of, but still rejected, the gospel.

For all these reasons, Blomberg is incorrect to read an implied "where unjustified" caveat into Matthew 5:22.  Jesus didn't want his followers calling anybody "raca" or "fool", ever.  

James Patrick Holding's quietly deleted homosexual fantasies

 Update, April 25, 2018:  see end

Several people have asked whether Holding really did create fantasy fiction about cartoon characters shoving their faces into their asses.  Yes, he did, and that blog piece had him describing people banging their faces on Holding's kneecaps (i.e., Holding is an internally conflicted clown, with his genetic defects hard-wiring him for homosexuality, while having chosen to defend a religion that calls it a sin, hence, his homosexuality manifests itself in ways that are not as forthright as they could be).

That webpage conveniently disappeared shortly after it's existence was pointed out in my federal lawsuit against Holding.   The timing was no coincidence.

Fortunately, I preserved the entire page, with the disgusting parts underlined.  The following comes from

http://www.tektoonics.com/test/parody/greentrial.html

extracted in August 2015

Yes, wayback preserved this page, but did so in 2013 when it had different content, access that here.

Holding's pretentious trifling faggot fantasy bullshit runs afoul of the following bible passages:

 13 'If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20:13 NAU)

 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. (Eph. 5:3-5 NAU) 

 4 he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Tim. 6:4-5 NAU) 

 8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. (Col. 3:8 NAU)

-------at the end of the article, Holding can't resist indulging his gayness one last time, in describing his enemies has shoving their faces into their asses...again:





 It would appear that Holding is the "Sheila" who has the superior arguments (Holding once passed himself off in another chat forum as Sheila Rangslinger) and the "Mattchu" character is representing Farrell Till, John Loftus or any of a number of skeptics that have raked Holding over the coals in the past.

Notice also that he has the skeptic "Mattchu" bang his face into Sheila's kneecaps.  That is, Holding wanted his followers to envision a man banging his face into Holding's kneecaps.

To ward off rumors that I only showed a little bit of this defunct webpage because I'm taking something out of context, that's bullshit, here's the full content of this juvenile faggot fantasy.  If Holding took it down, he has a Christian duty to explain why.  If he thought it was morally acceptable, why did it disappear completely?  If he thought the article needed correction or updating, why did he remove it completely?

If he noticed that it made him look more like a fag than he intended the public to know, he has a Christian duty to admit this blog piece was sinful.  But of course Holding's sin of pride causes him to mistake his mental processes for god's own presence.

When you get done reading this crap, you will have no illusions about why no legitimately credentialed Christian bible scholar wishes to associate with Holding.  Both Blomberg and Habermas have pulled their support too.

WEDNESSSSDAYSSES, JULY 4, 2007
The Jeremiah Duh-Lemma
In a world we all know, Mattchu is once again busy with his annual armpit inspection. It is the end of the year and it is time to do his inventory of fleas. As he does so, he hears footsteps behind him. He tries to hide by curling himself up tightly into a ball, with his head between his legs - so far indeed that it seems that his head is tucked into his buttocks. But it is of no use. Despite his best attempt, he is detected at once. He peeks one eye out from between his buttocks and groans. It is that stupid rabbit thing again.
 SHEILA: Happy New Year! I see you're celebrating in the usual place.
 MATTCHU: Grrr. What stupid rabbit want now?
 SHEILA: Well, we've been waiting to see if you'd produce something Mr. Holding hasn't answered yet. I mean, those last entries on the Trilemma and the Land Promise - you just didn't interact at all with his arguments which address what you say.
 MATTCHU (growling, rubbing head): Didn't knows about them - so sure me, dumb rabbitsses.
 SHEILA (shrugs): Not interested. I know all we'd get is your bills. (Pauses.) Anyway, I'm here about this, um...thing you wrote on Jeremiah 7:22. It's pretty stupid, as usual.
 Mattchu rises, and spite of past experience, runs screaming and pounding his fists into Sheila's legs. Mattchu just doesn't ever learn, it seems, and as before he just bounces off with no reward other than a pounding headache. The only difference is that this time, Sheila is not engrossed in the article she is holding; she sees him coming and watches, nonchalantly, and he bangs his face into her kneecaps. After he bounces off, she glances down critically and frowns.
 SHEILA: You bent a strand of my fur. Don't do that. It takes hours to groom this coat. (She brushes the strand back into place, then proceeds to read the article silently. Mattchu is still groaning and rubbing his injured forehead.) You know, dear, you really should take a hint from your own words. You say There are sometimes, where, honestly, I just cannot tell one way or the other, whether a solution is good or not. Well, doesn't this suggest to you that you need to shut up and learn more before you mouth off?
 MATTCHU (moaning): Uh uh.
 SHEILA: I didn't think so. But what's all this about Jer. 7:22?
 MATTCHU: HA! Holdingsses answer an interesting solution or an explanation that is may be good in terms of textual criticism but silly as an apologetic solution designed to salvage inerrancy.
 SHEILA: Inerrancy as you define it - in terms of your ultra-fundamentalist past - or inerrancy as he defines it, in terms of what readers of the time of the Bible would say?
 Mattchu stares stupidly for a few moments.
 SHEILA: You don't know the difference, do you?
 Mattchu shakes his head. There is a sound like a BB rattling in a boxcar.
 SHEILA: And look, dearie - all this rot about how it's hard to believe that any divine being would've let the solution be discovered as late as it was -- he's answered that before to you. You need to get over yourself and stop pretending God owes you something. You whine about this over and over and over again, as though God is obligated to cover your ignorance.
 MATTCHU: He do TOO owe me something! Butt kissing!
 SHEILA: Hmph. Looks to me like you can get John Loftus to do that for you if you really want it. (Sheila reads further.) Well, dear, first off, Mr. Holding doesn't dispute that Jeremiah was part of an anti-cultic faction was actually the theory of some well-respected scholars in the field. He knows that, likely better than you. In fact, I'm sure you didn't notice the further link to here in which Mr. Holding cited Hopper, and also showed why his argument was bogus. I don't suppose you actually care to defend this view, though, do you - that Jeremiah was part of some anti-cultic faction?
 (Mattchu shakes his head violently and backs off a step.)
 SHEILA: All right. And you failed to notice Mr. Holding's more detailed link, so shame on you. Now he also says, The simple answer to this notes that this is rather the use of hyperbole to effect a point. The purpose of this phrase is to show the relative importance of sacrifices, etc. in terms of inward attitudes. Indeed, were this not so, we would be constrained to ask how such an obvious "condemnation" of the sacrifices survived the so-called "cutting" since the very priests that Skeptic X accuses of creating the sacrificial law for their own benefit were the ones who made the "cuttings" in the first place! But history knows of no such opposition to the sacrificial system in Israel; while the temple machinery was often corrupt (as in the time of Annas), there is no indication at all that the actual sacrificial practice was disdained. This isn't his whole answer to the likes of Hopper - you missed that - but what do you say to it?
 MATTCHU: Grah -- This is something I find a bit silly. Holding asks how such an obvious condemnation would've survived since the priests were the ones who made the "cuttings" in the first place! This is almost like asking how could discrepancies exist in any part of the Bible since the early Church fathers would've known they existed and would've discovered them and tossed them out and since this didn't happen we can trust that they truly are inerrant.
 SHEILA (shakes head): No, dear, it's more complicated than that. You're missing the point again. The hypothesis is that there were two parties, pro-cultus and anti-cultus. We're talking about a strong rivalry between two major parties. Hopper and his friends hypothesize that loyalty to both parties was so strong that they HAD to include portions of Jeremiah, an anti-cultus prophet, to give themselves legitimacy. Now in a situation like that, you need hard proof that there was an anti-cultus party to begin with. Mr. Holding's last sentence is the most crucial there, and you missed the point because you were so busy drawing a false comparison. Mr. Holding is not talking about some absent-minded failure to notice. And your analogy to the Gospels still being in the canon in spite of discrepancies is not relevant, because there were not opposition parties over each Gospel. What we're talking about here is a case where the pro-cultus party is supposed to have won, and despite being careful enough to include parts of Jeremiah, was also evidently careless enough to leave this rather obvious anti-cultus verse. You can't have it both ways, dear. You can't posit a carefully-crafted conspiracy by the pro-cultus party while also arguing that they were careless and included a honking obvious anti-cultus statement. In essence you are saying they were careful when it suits your theory to say so, and careless when it suits your theory to say so. The theory is driving the facts. NOW do you get it?
 MATTCHU (scratching head): Duh....no.
 SHEILA (rolls eyes): I'm not surprised. Well, look - we can shift out all this rot about Ezekiel; that has nothing to do with Jer. 7:22. (She takes several pages out and throws them to the wind. Mattchu, horrified, runs after them screaming as Sheila continues to read. As he does, Sheila sighs.) Oh, please. More of this crybaby whining. "By what criteria do we determine whether a given passage is to be read "plainly" and when it is not? Come now, dear, this is ridiculous. Stop being lazy and stupid. It might surprise you to know that Mr. Holding is very much in support of the idea of tailoring translations for each culture - or at least providing deep explanatory notes. But that's still no excuse for you being lazy.
 But let's get to the point. You say you agree with Mr. Holding about the hyperbolic nature of teaching in that time. Right?
 (Mattchu, returning with papers stained with mud clutched in his hand, groans but nods agreement.)
 SHEILA: Now past all this whining about how God should allow you to be lazy, and all this whining about how you think this means God "hid" the solution - which Mr. Holding has called you down on before (though he does not think in this case that Whitney and the others did anything more than bring to the fore what other people already knew) - so you have any actual reason to say that Mr. Holding's answer is wrong?
 MATTCHU Uh....If Holding is right and Jeremiah 7:22 is a negation idiom and is fully consistent with the law of Moses in the Pentateuch, he is left with a serious problem- that of a prophecy in Jeremiah and other places where an eternal kingdom is promised to David and an eternal priesthood is promised as well!
 SHEILA (staring): Say WHAT? What the heck does one have to do with the other?
 MATTCHU: HA! In some places in the Hebrew Bible, an eternal throne is promised to king David. In 2 Samuel 7: 11-16, we find written:
 8"Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel. 9"I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. 10"I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, 11even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies The LORD also declares to you that the LORD will make a house for you. 12"When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 13"He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14"I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, 15but My loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16"Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever."'"
 SHEILA: Hold it.
 MATTCHU: WHAT? I is genius explaining something!
 SHEILA: Have you seen Mr. Holding's material on the word 'olam - which is the word usually translated "forever'?
 Mattchu stares blankly.
 SHEILA: Mr. Holding's study follows the conclusions of James Barr'sBiblical Words for Time -- which concludes that the word does not mean "forever" but "in perpetuity" or basically, "as long as". "Forever" in English implies something unconditional and unchanging, but as Barr showed, 'olam does not.
 So your argument that says that:
 Again, we see here the promise that "David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne before the houses of Israel" and, interestingly, enough, the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Yahweh to perform burnt offerings. Yahweh compares the covenant with David to a covenant that he established with the day and night. If the former can be dissolved, then it's possible that the covenant with David and the priesthood can be dissolved. Apparently, the throne and kingdom of David were meant to be understood as being eternal as well as the sacrificial system. If Holding is right and Jeremiah 7:22 is consistent with the Pentateuch, he has an even bigger problem: not only is there an eternal throne to David which never materialized but Christ could not have ended the sacrificial system because Yahweh is promising that the sacrificial system is eternal and will last forever
 ...is wrong from the start. Mr. Holding has no dilemma as you say; it's just that as usual, you get your foot stuck in your mouth because you haven't read all that he's written. He's also addressed that point from Cross about the "unconditional" nature of the promises - in the Land Promise materials answering Till which you didn't interact with. It's right here, in fact - Mr. Holding quotes from the same place you do. And he answers why it is not a problem for him. All this means in this context is that the sacrificial system is in suspension. Sorry, dear - you've made a fool of yourself again.
 At this, Mattchu throws his papers into the air and runs, screaming, towards Sheila. She sighs and at the right moment, raises her knee and delivers a stunning blow to his chin. His head and chest arch backwards, and in amazing feat of acrobatics, his forehead becomes jammed between his buttocks. In this position he somehow manages to land on his feet, and toddles off, screaming curses against J. P. Holding.
 SHEILA (sighs): Well, that's the way it goes...either way, he ends up with his head in the same place.
 Posted by Sheilaat Fun time0 comments -- no one cares!

------------------------end

 Holding's sinful fixation with the anus shows up again:

This came from the People in Need of Preparation H:
You sir are a nasty and twisted person. Flush the bile out of your system once a day and before every public display and then maybe we can learn to appreciate your thoughts!

Taken alone, this might not indicate homosexuality, but it does in Holding's case because he has such a long and distinguished history of manifesting his unsavory appetite for male ass, even other Christian apologists have had to chastise him about it.  From a prior post:

Holding pushed his use of homoerotic illustrations to such extreme levels in his debate with Christian apologist Steve Hays, that Hays had to complain and rightly observe that Holding has a filthy mind:

 …As a flavor of the level at which Holding’s mind operates, his latest thread is charmingly headed: “Steve Hays needs to stop passing gas at his betters.” This is a specimen of Defendant’s recurrent obsessive-compulsive anal fixation.
…Defendant’s personal antagonism towards me is so extreme that he will pounce on anything I say simply because I was the one who said it. And by being so utterly reactionary, he backs himself into the most indefensible corners imaginable.
…This is not the first time that Defendant has taken a personal interest in my backside. Defendant would be well advised to resist his unsavory attraction so many homoerotic illustrations.    

 UPDATE:  February 23, 2019
Since I originally posted this, it came to my attention that the apologist who authored the above words, Steve Hays, issued a disclaimer, insisting that he was just kidding about Holding when saying those things.  I quote the disclaimer and provide a comprehensive rebuttal showing that Hays is a liar...he might be backpeddeling now, but back when he originally posted those words, he meant them with all holy sincerity.  See here.
-----------------------------

 So when such a person as Holding consistently makes reference to buttocks, anus, and the like, remember you are not dealing with the average heterosexual man who only occasionally talks like this, and that puts a different spin on his words.  Holding really is a fag at heart, but because he has a female wife, it's probably more accurate to call him a closet homosexual.  The great irony is that I'm an atheist critic of Holding and I find male homosexuality revolting.  Holding is allegedly an apologist who defends traditional Christian morality, and yet exhibits more signs of homosexuality than even some atheists.  How fucking sad is that?

James Patrick Holding disqualified by the bible from the office of Christian "teacher"

James Patrick Holding, formerly Robert Turkel, is known for little else on the internet than aggressively defending the bible as god's inerrant word.  www.tektonics.org.



And yet he has made statements that would get him kicked out of any conservative or fundamentalist church.  In 2008 I debated him at theologyweb.com, and I remarked that I caught Holding somewhere else talking like an atheist about the bible, and that therefore he would need to employ his tried-and-true "I-was-just-being-sarcastic" excuse to "explain" it to his buddies.

Holding, surprisingly, confirmed that he wasn't being sarcastic, but genuine.  That is, Holding confirmed that he really doesn't care whether the bible is the word of God or not.  Here's the relevant part of the exchange:

-----me: I just found out that you made a statement several years ago that you personally don't care if the bible is the inspired word of God or not, so that your gargantuan efforts to "defend biblical inerrancy" were all in the name of finding a way to beat up other people and had nothing to do with your personal convictions whatsoever. Better break out that "I-was-just-being-saracastic" excuse again, you're gonna need it to back out of that blooper.
-----Holding, I wasn't being sarcastic. Each of the 20 times I have said something like that, it was genuine. Which one did you have in mind? 

Naturally, the owner of theologyweb (who is also Holding's buddy), got rid of this embarrassing blooper, but thankfully it is still preserved by the wayback machine, which is thus an example that a godless secular machine has more concern for actual historical truth than Mr. Holding himself.  Check out the link.

So ask yourself: Where does the bible allow Christian teachers (which office Holding wants his paying admirers to believe he legitimately holds) to have such apathetic (uncaring) attitude toward the divine inspiration of the scriptures?

 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17 NAU)

I can buy that Jesus allowed for mere "salvation" of those who didn't take any position on the inspiration of the scriptures.  What I cannot buy is that Jesus or Paul would have this liberal attitude toward Christian teachers. What are the odds that Paul would have approved of so-called Christian teachers in his churches who didn't care whether the scriptures were inspired by God?

Holding has been publicly endorsed in the past by genuinely qualified Christian scholars like Craig Blomberg, Gay Habermas, and Daniel Wallace.  One wonders what these conservatives would think if they knew Holding took such a shit attitude toward the divine inspiration of the bible?  They might muse that the only reason Holding makes such a big deal out of bible inerrancy is because it gives him something to bitch about, nothing more.

Email Holding sometime and ask him where the bible approves or allows for Christian teachers, as he supposes himself to be, to have such apathetic attitude toward the divine origin of the Scriptures.

His email address is: jphold@att.net
His residence address is: 2609 Greywall Ave, Ocoee, FL 34761

The fact that Holding is a closet-homosexual and that the bible scholars he quoted for years to justify his insulting demeanor toward critics, say he gives Christianity a bad name and have twice disowned him professionally and morally in no uncertain terms, provides sufficient probable cause to believe that Holding is no more a genuine Christian than Robert Tilton or Benny Hinn. 

In the real world we label such conflicted clowns with cognitive dissonance (willingness to hold two mutually contradictory positions on a matter despite knowing they contradict each other).

Answer to J.P. Holding's Wheel of Stupid: Marriage in Numbers 31, Deut. 21

 
Skeptics have long pointed out the sexual immorality implicit and explicit in Numbers 31 and Deuteronomy 21.  In Numbers 31:18, Moses says the Hebrews may spare from massacre the virgin girls "for yourselves", and in Deut. 21:10-14, the rite for marriage to a female war captive gives no sign of concern for the possibility that the woman might not wish to marry the Hebrew man who just massacred her family.

Holding responds to some of these concerns at Wheel of Stupid Biblical Marriage Series 3 (Numbers 31, Deut. 21)

Unfortunately, many of his videos have commenting disabled, showing us that he intends to offer rebuttal to skeptics in a forum that prevents the reader from conveniently seeing how skeptics respond.

So I respond to that video here.

Numbers 31

    13 Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp.
 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
 15 And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women?
 16 "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD.
 17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
 19 "And you, camp outside the camp seven days; whoever has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves, you and your captives, on the third day and on the seventh day.
 (Num. 31:13-19 NAU)

  ====================
Here's the backstory:  In Numbers 25, Israelites give in to sexual sin with the Midianites.  There, Moses orders the death of Israelites so involved.  In Numbers 31, God allegedly requires Moses to take "full" vengeance (31:1) on the Midianites.  The Hebrew soldiers make Moses angry as they return from said war with living captives (women and children and some men), and Moses' solution in  31:17-18 is controversial and implies Moses approved of sex within adult-child marriages.

Holding asks why did Israelspare 32,000 virgins in Numbers 31, and parodies the atheist answer as “because they wanted lots of sex”.  Holding then gives the following text:

“Actually since girls were normally married at this time by age 12, that “virgins” here would have been an average age of 5 years old.”

First, Holding cites no sources to substantiate his assertion that girls in the days of Moses were normally married by age 12.  For example, there is absolutely nothing in the Law of Moses that says what age the girl should be married.  Holding here is probably merely drawing upon a generalization by ANE scholars that 12 was the average age of marriage, but given how much the bible-god hates the ways of the pagan nations of the ANE, it is not very biblical to just assume whatever was true for everybody else in the ANE was likely true for Moses too.  If one combines his lack of documentation, with the childish cartoon nature of the video, one gets a pretty clear idea of the mental status of the people Holding is trying to convince, and its certainly not skeptics like myself who have researched these issues. 

Second, many conservative Christian scholars still revere the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary, because what it has to say about the bible remains very scholarly despite its having been written in the 1800’s.  After acknowledging King Ahaz fathered a child at 10-11 years old, they recognize the question this will pop into the mind of the reader, and they go on to cite documentary evidence that prepubescent marriage was normative for middle-eastern families, and this evidence forces Holding, without a rebuttal otherwise, to admit ancient Hebrews were willing to allow marriage at even younger ages than 12:

2 Kings 16:1–4. On the time mentioned, “in the seventeenth year of Pekah Ahaz became king” see at 2 Kings 15:32. The datum “twenty years old” is a striking one, even if we compare with it 2 Kings 18:2. As Ahaz reigned only sixteen years, and at his death his son Hezekiah became king at the age of twenty-five years (2 Kings 18:2), Ahaz must have begotten him in the eleventh year of his age. It is true that in southern lands this is neither impossible nor unknown,33 but in the case of the kings of Judah it would be without analogy. The reading found in the LXX, Syr., and Arab. at 2 Chron. 28:1, and also in certain codd., viz., five and twenty instead of twenty, may therefore be a preferable one. According to this, Hezekiah, like Ahaz, was born in his father’s sixteenth year.
------33 In the East they marry girls of nine or ten years of age to boys of twelve or thirteen (Volney, Reise, ii. p. 360). Among the Indians husbands of ten years of age and wives of eight are mentioned (Thevenot, Reisen, iii. pp. 100 and 165). In Abyssinia boys of twelve and even ten years old marry (Rüppell, Abessynien, ii. p. 59). Among the Jews in Tiberias, mothers of eleven years of age and fathers of thirteen are not uncommon (Burckh. Syrien, p. 570); and Lynch saw a wife there, who to all appearance was a mere child about ten years of age, who had been married two years already. In the epist. ad N. Carbonelli, from Hieronymi epist. ad Vitalem, 132, and in an ancient glossa, Bochart has also cited examples of one boy of ten years and another of nine, qui nutricem suam gravidavit, together with several other cases of a similar kind from later writers. Cf. Bocharti Opp. i. (Geogr. sacr.) p. 920, ed. Lugd. 1692.

Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (2002). Commentaryon the Old Testament. 

(Vol. 3, Page 283-284). 

Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Third, and perhaps most important, if the biblical descriptions of pagan perversions is true (i.e., if the pagan "pass-your-children-through-the-fire" was describing pagans literally roasting their children to death, Deut. 18:10), then we have a rational basis to conclude that these people were so corrupted that not only did they approve of all forms of sex (penetrative and non-penetrative) but that they also had little regard for age  (i.e., pedophilia).   What exactly is the moral difference between throwing one's 5 year old girl into a fiery furnace, and allowing her to be used sexually?  The point is that the pagans likely allowed pedophilia, in which case some of the prepubescent girls would have participated in the sexual sin at Peor, or tried, meaning Moses' willingness to generally spare all the prepubescent girls was grounded in something other than his belief that they remained from of his sexual sin.

These considerations prompt questions Holding doesn't go near answering:

Why does Moses think the existing virginity of these girls makes them worthy of sparing?  Did he think their hymens remaining intact after the sexual sin at Peor (ch. 25) constituted proof that they did not sin sexually with the Israelites?  What fool thinks an intact hymen negates the possibility that the girl engaged in sexual relations?  Wasn't Moses a married man who surely knew that sex and thus sexual sin can take place without penetrative vaginal intercourse?  Or is there a distinct possibility that in the Hebrew mind, only vaginal intercourse qualified as "sex"?

Holding, who thinks the Jews scrupulously preserved the oral traditions that are behind the Pentateuch,  also doesn't tell his readers how the Babylonian Talmud (oldest ancient Jewish commentary on the OT) answers the question of how the Hebrews could tell which girls were virgins in this episode.  Holding and Glen Miller avoid the fire by positing that the clothes of virgin girls would have been different, but alas, the Talmud at Yebamoth 60a-b says Moses had them pass before the ceremonial frontplate and their virgin-status or lack thereof was determined by whether they blushed from embarassment, a thing he would hardly have done if their dress was the conclusive deciding factor:

  It was taught: R. Simeon b. Yohai stated: A proselyte who is under the age of three years and one day is permitted to marry a priest,13  for it is said, But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves,14  and Phinehas15  surely was with them. And the Rabbis?16  — [These were kept alive] as bondmen and bondwomen.17  If so,18  a proselyte whose age is three years and one day19  should also be permitted! — [The prohibition is to be explained] in accordance with R. Huna. For R. Huna pointed out a contradiction: It is written, Kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him,20  but if she hath not known, save her alive; from this it may be inferred that children are to be kept alive whether they have known or have not known [a man]; and, on the other hand, it is also written, But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves,14  but do not spare them if they have known. Consequently21  it must be said that Scripture speaks of one who is fit22  for cohabitation.23  It was also taught likewise: And every woman that hath known man;20  Scripture speaks of one who is fit23  for cohabitation. You say, 'Of one who is fit for cohabitation'; perhaps it is not so but of one who had actual intercourse? — As Scripture stated, But all women children, that have not known man by lying with him,24  it must be concluded that Scripture speaks of one who is fit for cohabitation.23
Whence did they know?25  — R. Hana26  b. Bizna replied in the name of R. Simeon the Pious: They were made to pass before the frontplate.27  If the face of anyone turned pale28  it was known that she was fit for cohabitation; if it did not turn pale28  it was known that she was unfit for cohabitation.

 The same source continues on, mentioning the Hebrews capturing 400 virgins in Judges 21, and explaining the Hebrews knew they were virgins by making the girls sit on the mouth of a wine-cask, and if a girl's breath smelled like wine, she was judged a non-virgin.  Interestingly, some of the Rabbis felt this earlier barbaric test should have been applied in the case of the Midianite virgins:

Similarly, it is said, And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had not known man by lying with him;29 whence did they know it?30 R. Kahana replied: They made them sit upon the mouth of a wine-cask. [Through anyone who had] had previous intercourse, the odour penetrated; through a virgin, its odour did not penetrate. They should have been made to pass before the frontplate!31 — R. Kahana son of R. Nathan replied: It is written, for acceptance,32 for acceptance but not for punishment. If so, the same should have applied at Midian also!33 R. Ashi replied: It is written, ‘unto them’, implying unto them34 for acceptance but not for

punishment; unto idolaters,35 however, even for punishment.36

13.    She is not regarded as a harlot.

14.    Num. XXXI, 18.

15.    Who was a priest.

16.    How could they, contrary to the opinion of R. Simeon b. Yohai, which has Scriptural support, forbid the marriage of the young proselyte?

17.    Not for matrimony.

18.    That, according to R. Simeon, Num. XXXI, 18 refers to matrimony.

19.    So long as she has 'not known man'.

20.    Num. XXXI, 17.

21.    To reconcile the contradiction.

22.    I.e., one who had attained the age of three years and one day.

23.    Not one who had actually experienced it.

24.    Implying that any grown-up woman is not to be spared, even if she hath not known man.

25.    Which of the Midianite women, referred to in the texts quoted, was, or was not fit for cohabitation.

26.    Cur. [edd.], 'Huna'.

27.    [H] the gold plate which was worn by the High Priest on his forehead. V, Ex. XXVIII, 36ff.

28.    Lit., '(sickly) green'.

29.    Judges XXI, 12.

30.    Cf. supra n. 1 mutatis mutandis.

31.    As was done in the case of the Midianites (v. supra).

32.    Ex. XXVIII, 38, referring to the front-plate.

33.    Why then was the test there performed before the plate?

34.    Israelites, as were the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead.

35.    As were the Midianites.

36.    By the front-plate.

I think this is the part where Holding stops being so confident that the Jews were able to reliably preserve their oral traditions.

Holding next asserts

 “Therefore, this passage (Numbers 31:18) would have nothing to do with any concepts of marriage – and not surprisingly, it says nothing about marriage either.”

The objections are easy and many:  Several conservative Christian commentators assert the spared girls were intended for marriage or concubinage, that is, Holding is giving the false impression to the naïve viewer that his opinion is standard among conservative scholars.

Update: June 12, 2017:  From the wayback machine, I uncovered an old 2015 post of mine at theologyweb.com that the owner of that site deleted, a thread to which Holding had repeatedly replied.  In that thread, in my first post,  I quoted a conservative inerrantist Christian scholar who said the girls of Numbers 31:18 were spared for purposes that included marriage. 

You will say they were only spared to do housework, but bible-believing commentators have already asserted that this sparing in Numbers 31:18 was for purposes that included marriage:

Women who had known men sexually, whether Midianite or sinful Israelite men, were to be considered unclean, since they were the main instrument of Israel�s demise at Baal Peor. Only the young girls would be allowed to live so that they may be taken as wives or slaves by the Israelite men, according to the principles of holy war (Deut 20:13�14; 21:10�14).

Cole, R. D. (2001, c2000). Vol. 3B: Numbers (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 499).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 The point is that when Holding, in his 2017 video, asserts that the sparing in Numbers 31:18 had nothing to do with marriage, this was two years after he was correctly informed that conservative Protestant inerrantist scholars exist who say the sparing was for purposes involving marriage.  That is, Holding expresses his denial position with great confidence despite his knowledge that other conservative Christian scholars disagree with said denial.  It boils down to simple dishonesty.  If Holding wasn't such a dogmatic jerk, so consistently incapable of distinguishing his beliefs from the voice of God, he would probably have made more clear that his denial of marriage-motive in Numbers 31:18 is an interpretation that other inerrantist scholars disagree with.

------------end of update.

The following are from properly credentialed bible scholars, while Holding has no formal education in the bible beyond a master's in library science:

 Only the young girls would be allowed to live so that they may be taken as wives or slaves by the Israelite men, according to the principles of holy war (Deut 20:13–14; 21:10–14). By this they could be brought under the umbrella of the covenant community of faith.
Cole, R. D. (2001, c2000). Vol. 3B: Numbers (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 499). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

31:17–18. rationale for who is put to death. The criteria used to determine who would be executed were two: (1) all the boys must be killed to prevent them from presenting a military threat in the future, and (2) all nonvirgins must die since they have already been contaminated by sexual contact with a proscribed people. Virgins represent an “unplowed field” and may be adopted through marriage into the Israelite tribes (see Judg 21:11–12). It is also possible that they were enslaved or used as concubines. These young women were presumably innocent of the seduction of the Israelites by Midianite women at Baal-Peor (Num 25).
Matthews, V. H., Chavalas, M. W., & Walton, J. H. (2000). The IVP Bible background commentary : Old Testament (electronic ed.) (Nu 31:18-24). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

The adult males are slain, including the king, princes, and Balaam. The women and children are taken as captives along with much booty. Moses is angry with the military leaders when he sees the Midianite women. They, on Balaam’s advice, had turned Israel away from the Lord. He commands the officers to kill all the boys and every woman who has slept with a man. The virgins and little girls are spared; they will be assimilated into the congregation of Israel by marriage. Thus, in the midst of vengeance, there is compassion.
Elwell, W. A. (1996, c1989). Vol. 3: Evangelical commentary on the Bible. Baker reference library (Nu 31:1). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.

Only the virgins were spared, because they could marry Israelites and thereby be assimilated into the Israelite community.
Brown, R. E., Fitzmyer, J. A., & Murphy, R. E. (1968]; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996). The Jerome Biblical commentary (electronic ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

The young virgins were spared for marriage (Deut. 21:10–14) and slavery (Lev. 25:44–46)
Hughes, R. B., Laney, J. C., & Hughes, R. B. (2001). Tyndale concise Bible commentary. Rev. ed. of: New Bible companion. 1990.; Includes index. The Tyndale reference library (Page 65). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

 Deuteronomy 21:1-14

10 "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive,
 11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself,
 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails.
 13 "She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
 14 "It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her.
 (Deut. 21:10-14 NAU)

Holding then asserts the following about the regulations in Deut. 21:10-14 for marrying female war captives:

 “In reality, Deut. 21:10-14 is a step up on other law codes of the day which allowed women captured in war to be indiscriminately killed, mutilated, and raped.”

 First, it doesn’t matter if that is true; the Hebrews being slightly more civilized than their pagan neighbors is not the issue:  the problem is the arguments that indicate this marriage regulation takes no concern for the woman’s feelings, ever, which means the sexual consummation it authorizes constitutes rape (to say nothing of the fact that the guy she would be having sex with was part of the mob that had just killed her family and kidnapped her [in 2015 Holding at theologyweb.com, in a post that has since been removed from public access, said it was “personal honor” that would convince such a woman to become willing to have sex with the guy who just killed her family, though he offered no historical, biblical or sociological evidence that a sense of honor would ever cause a woman to replace her disgust for her family's killer with feelings of sexual arousal]).

  Theologyweb Does your God approve of Rape?
04-15-2015, 01:25 AM #277
jpholding
03-26-2015, 08:16 PM #134
Quote Originally Posted by B&H View Post
Can you think of any plausible argument that a woman might consent 
willingly and freely to sex with a man who is part of the mob that just killed her family?
 ----------Holding: Yeah, stupid...it's called "personal honor".

 
 Holding learned his honor-culture stuff from Context Group co-founder Richard Rohrbaugh.  See my other blog article quoting Rohrbaugh as saying Holding has obviously perverted the Context Group's work on honor/shame societies, and that Holding gives Christianity a bad name and needs serious psychological help

Second, Holding’s effort to argue that this law did not approve of rape, runs counter to the way at least one Christian bible committee translates it. The American Bible Society produced the "Good News" bible, and that one explicitly puts rape into v. 14:

14 Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her.

Such a Christian translation committee would surely not have rendered this verse to clearly connote rape, if as Holding would insist, the evidence against the rape interpretation was obvious and powerful.
There are contextual reasons to support the rape interpretation:  1) like a rapist, the guy who wrote this law shows no concern whatsoever for whether the woman desires to be married, the rite is to begin if the man desires to marry her; 2) the law is allowing for a man who was part of the army who just killed that woman's family, descreated her idols and carried her off as prisoner of war, to marry her, so it is safe to assume the author is allowing the man to become married to, and thus have sex with the very type of woman most unlikely to ever have sexual feelings for the man, thus further implying lack of consent on her part.

There are grammatical reasons to support the rape interpretation:  In v. 14, the standard translation is "you have humbled her", with the Hebrew anah laying behind "humbled".  This anah appears in the following passages where the context clearly indicates "rape": 

 2 When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force (Hebrew: anah). (Gen. 34:2 NAU)

 24 "Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out that you may ravish  (Hebrew: anah) them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man." (Jdg. 19:24 NAU)

 11 When she brought them to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, "Come, lie with me, my sister."
 12 But she answered him, "No, my brother, do not violate  (Hebrew: anah) me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing!
 13 "As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you."
 14 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated  (Hebrew: anah) her and lay with her. (2 Sam. 13:11-14 NAU)

 7 "They have treated father and mother lightly within you. The alien they have oppressed in your midst; the fatherless and the widow they have wronged in you.
 8 "You have despised My holy things and profaned My sabbaths.
 9 "Slanderous men have been in you for the purpose of shedding blood, and in you they have eaten at the mountain shrines. In your midst they have committed acts of lewdness.
 10 "In you they have uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in you they have humbled  (Hebrew: anah) her who was unclean in her menstrual impurity.
 11 "One has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law. And another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter.
 (Ezek. 22:7-11 NAU)

 10 Our skin has become as hot as an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
 11 They ravished  (Hebrew: anah) the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.
 12 Princes were hung by their hands; Elders were not respected. (Lam. 5:10-12 NAU)

 The standard lexicons say anah can refer to rape:

  Koehler - Baumgartner lexicon:

 —2. to do violence to: a) to rape a woman Gn 342 2S 1312.14.22.32 Ju 1924 205 Lam 511; to abuse Ezk 2210f; bעִנָּה מִשְׁפָּט ( to violate justice, bend, bow Jb 3723; c( to overpower someone Ju 165f. 19 ï nif. 3. כֹּחַ to break Ps 10224, to cram someone’s feet into fetters 10518 (:: W. Thomas JTS 16 (1965 !):444f);

 Holladay lexicon; 

1. oppress, make s.one feel his dependence Gn 1513 & oft.; humiliate Nu 2424, (of God) humble, subdue 1K 1139; ±innâ mišp¹‰ violate justice Jb 3723; humiliate (a woman by forced marriage) Dt 2114; ±innâ nafšô, humble onesf., mortify onesf. (by fasting) Lv 1629; — 2. violate, rape (a woman) Gn 342; — 3. overpower Ju 165f; force s.one into (b®) s.thg Ps 10518.

 Harris says in his Theological Wordbook:

 This verb is applied to the forcing of a woman including a captive woman later rejected (Deut 21:14) or cases of pre-marital relations (Deut 22:29; Gen 34:2). It can be a capital offence (Deut 22:24).

 The rape interpretation of Deut. 21:14 may also be sustained from the larger context of general Hebrew morality, which was barbaric to say the least, in which case we do better to pause before blindly assuming the ancient Hebrews felt the same way about sex as modern white Christian evangelicals. Hebrew patriarchs felt burning to death was appropriate:

 24 Now it was about three months later that Judah was informed, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot, and behold, she is also with child by harlotry." Then Judah said, "Bring her out and let her be burned!" (Gen. 38:24 NAU)

 Moses commands the burning death of a priest’s daughter if she has pre-marital sex:

 9 'Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. (Lev. 21:9 NAU)

 God’s will for Achan, expressed before Achan was executed, was to have him and his children burned to death for stealing that wedge of gold, whether Joshua brought about their death by burning or by stoning is irrelevant to the specific desire of God that the burning be the mode of death.

 15 'It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel.'" (Jos. 7:15 NAU)

Holding continues:

 “The strictures humanize the woman and undermine the assumptions which normalized the harsher treatment.  In that sense, it was an effort to reform as well as legislate morality.”

If Holding means that the Hebrew God's approval of rape was an attempt to reform morality, then yes.  Rape is immoral unless it is approved by Mr. Bible-god.