Protestant Christians often criticize the Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility.
The argument goes like this: if the Catholics are going to protect this doctrine by pretending that it only takes effect in limited circumstances (such as when the pope speaks to the entire church upon an issue of faith or morals), and if they further insist this authority hasn't been exercised by the pope more than 5 times in the last 2,000 years, then how can Catholics claim God thought giving such authority to men was a useful good?
Can we seriously say that God wanted the church to be sure of Mary's bodily Assumption (declared infallible by Pope Pius XII in 1950, see here), but not about Jesus being fully equal with the Father (neither Pope Sylvester I nor any Pope after him made infallible pronouncement about the majority vote at Nicaea)?
Well gee, what's more important? Jesus' equality with the Father, or Mary flying into the sky? Most Protestants think your eternal fate is affected by whether you say Jesus was creature or creator, but no Christian seriously thinks your eternal fate is decided based on what you have to say about Mary flying into the sky.
That is a strong attack on the feasibility of Papal Infallibility. The more a person needs the ability they actually possess, and yet the more they avoid employing it to solve problems, the more stupid they appear to be. If this ability wasn't exercised more than 5 times in 2,000 years, doesn't there exist a substantial likelihood that the ability actually never existed?
I don't see how such attack is diminished when the subject becomes biblical infallibility or "inerrancy".
First, inerrancy has a worse track record than papal infallibility. The latter has at least assured us Mary went bodily into heaven, bible "inerracy" has done precisely nothing to guarantee that any Christian doctrine is true, except inerrancy itself, which merely fallaciously begs the question. That is, nobody can really demonstrate how it is that the doctrine of inerrancy actually does anything in the practical world to move people from error into truth or preserve them from falling into error. Another way of putting it would be to say that inerrancy presents itself as a tool to be employed to achieve some type of goal, but what that goal is, cannot be reasonably determined. There is nothing about "bible inerrancy" that provides infallible assurance that your interpretation of the bible is correct...or that you are correct in your decision to say certain biblical ethics apply to modern day Christians, etc.
Second, suppose for a moment that the U.S. Constitution was the inerrant word of God. Do you suppose this new truth would suddenly cause America's legal system to finally come to agreement on what the Constitution does and doesn't allow? Hardly. It's inerrancy would do precisely nothing to put an end to the aggressively polarized legal wars between the ACLU and everybody else, as they verbally masscare each other on whether the Constitution supports gay marriage, death penalty, etc.
So we'd then be reasonable to question that assumption: Why are you saying the U.S. Constitution is the inerrant word of God, when such a doctrine appears to be little more than a useless academic question whose answer provides no real-world benefits and appears to do little more than convince people to become obstinately bigoted about how correct they are?
Third, it is reasonable to ask inerrantists what purpose there is in going around arguing in favor of bible inerrancy and fending off skeptical attacks: doing this isn't going to settle any doctrinal controversy (attacks on inerrancy continually convince people that this doctrine is false). And when we do hear of the occassional unbeliever or Christian who changes their mind and concluded the bible is "inerrant", in nearly every case this is not the result of years of scholarly study, but the result of other influences. There's no shortage of fundies on the internet who swear they were professional atheist bible critics for decades before the truth finally brought them kicking and screaming over the line, but we have to decide on a case by case basis which of these mostly anonymous loudmouths are telling the truth and which are just trying to save face.
Fourth, inerrancy's uselessness and danger is legitimately inferred from the fact that it emboldens heretics to think their faulty opinions are beyond criticism, a thing that dims one's prospects for enabling them to see the error of their way. Do you find it difficult to persuade Jehovah's Witnesses of how wrong they are? Might their view of the bible as inerrant be some of what's causing them to think their interpretations of it are beyond reasonable criticism? How short of a walk is it, really, from "the bible is inerrant" to "my interpretations of the bible are inerrant"?
Fifth, inerrancy has done much to hurt the cause of likemindedness demanded by the biblical authors (1st Cor. 1:10, Philippians 2:2, 4:2). Geisler's criticism of Mike Licona is just the tip of the ice-box.
Finally, the obvious fact that God is quite capable of accomplishing any purpose he has for humanity without requiring that they first become perfect, makes clear that God can also guide you by use of imperfect teaching resources, such as sinful family, friends or Christian teachers. If you don't tell everybody in the world to fuck off merely because their sin nature leaves you no infallible assurances they won't mislead you, then apparently it really is stupid to pretend that one little authentic error in the originals of the bible opens the floodgates to perpetual satanic indecisiveness.
The "assurance" and "comfort" that "inerrancy" brings is completely hollow, given the rat's nest of finger-pointing heretics who all adopt the doctrine, and would only sound edifying superficial ungrounded persons whose idea of security is still at the level of an infant.
For all these reasons, I insist that the practical uselessness and controversial nature of papal infallibility constitute the same problem for bible inerrancy. In both cases, the doctrines give you something to yap about, maybe even feel confident about, but at the end of the day, the most practical real-world good that is accomplished by "knowing" that the bible is "inerrant" consists of its tempting people to do what they usually do anyway, and falsely move from "inerrant source" to "inerrant interpretation".
I'm open to any Christian scholar or apologist correcting this blog piece by pointing out how the demonstrable theological good of inerrancy outweighs the demonstrable sins of pride, slander and closed-mindedness everybody knows this doctrine motivates people to commit. While in academia there is distinction between the bible's inherent inerrancy and one's interpretation of the bible, this distinction evaporates in the real world. "You can know that pre-millenialism is true because that's what god's inerrant word teaches." If people are not truth-robots, a doctrine like inerrancy will likely cause more harm than good.
But if the inerrancy of the bible doesn't provide you with a way to infallibly interpret the bible, then the doctrine appears to do what Papal Infallibility does...solve precisely nothing, create unnecessary controversy and give the church yet another doctrine to divide over.
For all these reasons, I would argue that if the bible teaches inerrancy, the problems outlined herein would justify rejecting the doctrine.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Frank Turek's Big Bang is evaporating
Frank Turek appears to have done more than any other Christian apologist to convince others that his particular creationist version of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe not only implies god's existence, but is the only form of the theory that deserves any comment.
The trouble with Turek's theory is as follows:
First, I think the theory is total bullshit, it is a poster-child for ad hoc excuse making, as the theory . Reminds one of a Christian apologist who is losing a debate, and who thus automatically assume any logically possible alternative they can conjure up to get away from a beating, is the only reasonable hypothesis.
Second, many creationists who decry evolution also say the Big Bang theory is false scientifically AND biblically. AiG and ICR deny it outright, see here and here. I agree with them, especially on the bible: one standard rule of hermeneutics is that how the originally intended readers would likely have understood the bible author's words, must weigh heavily on any interpretation purporting to be "objective". There is simply no fucking way that pre-scientific goat-herders would have either read Genesis 1-2 or any Psalms, and left room in their minds for the possibility that all this happy horseshit was the result of a cosmological explosion. It is more consistent with patterns of ANE thinking to assume they would have understood such biblical wording to be saying God created the universe the way a carpenter builds a house.
Discoveries in the ways ANE people thought are forcing inerrantist Christian scholars to make damning admissions and otherwise set forth ridiculous trifles in the effort to protect the biblical wording from the charge of error. See discussion of John Walton's "Lost World of Scripture" here, where Walton reluctantly admits he must disagree with Whitcomb and Morris's attempts to show the scientific "inerrancy" of Genesis 1-2. He also says:
Third, in the August 2014 issue of Sky and Telescope, we were told that there was no "before the Big Bang". See here.
Fourth, In the February 2019 issue of Sky and Telescope, bets are hedging: now we are being told
I do not propose the new developments to make an infinite universe the only reasonable interpretation. I'm more conservatively only setting forth such official science statements to show that Frank Turek's Christian dogmatism about how the BB implies a limited universe, is entirely unwarranted and smacks more of preaching to the choir, than of dispassionate scholasticism.
I would think it borders on dishonest for Turek to pretend that his particular version of the BB theory is so sufficiently supported that he can just pretend that the other models, which admit the universe has an infinite history and size, are unworthy of serious consideration. Even if a big bang happened, no, Dr. Turek, that does not automatically imply a "spaceless, timeless, immaterial intelligence".
The trouble with Turek's theory is as follows:
First, I think the theory is total bullshit, it is a poster-child for ad hoc excuse making, as the theory . Reminds one of a Christian apologist who is losing a debate, and who thus automatically assume any logically possible alternative they can conjure up to get away from a beating, is the only reasonable hypothesis.
Second, many creationists who decry evolution also say the Big Bang theory is false scientifically AND biblically. AiG and ICR deny it outright, see here and here. I agree with them, especially on the bible: one standard rule of hermeneutics is that how the originally intended readers would likely have understood the bible author's words, must weigh heavily on any interpretation purporting to be "objective". There is simply no fucking way that pre-scientific goat-herders would have either read Genesis 1-2 or any Psalms, and left room in their minds for the possibility that all this happy horseshit was the result of a cosmological explosion. It is more consistent with patterns of ANE thinking to assume they would have understood such biblical wording to be saying God created the universe the way a carpenter builds a house.
Discoveries in the ways ANE people thought are forcing inerrantist Christian scholars to make damning admissions and otherwise set forth ridiculous trifles in the effort to protect the biblical wording from the charge of error. See discussion of John Walton's "Lost World of Scripture" here, where Walton reluctantly admits he must disagree with Whitcomb and Morris's attempts to show the scientific "inerrancy" of Genesis 1-2. He also says:
The point is, when believing in inerrancy is a requirement to be a Christian (which some Christians infer—if not outright claim), that can be a pill too big to swallow, especially when there is data in the Bible that doesn’t seem to fit what most people understand by inerrancy.Apparently, conceptions of the universe aren't the only theories undergoing inevitable evolution. God's biblical truths are about as infallible as geocentrism.
Third, in the August 2014 issue of Sky and Telescope, we were told that there was no "before the Big Bang". See here.
Fourth, In the February 2019 issue of Sky and Telescope, bets are hedging: now we are being told
The Big Bang theory doesn't rule out the possibility that there was some pre-existing universe from which ours sprang...there are almost as many theories as there are theorists..." (p. 18).Fifth, Turek's argument that the BB was the beginning of the universe, is a misunderstanding:
Was the Big Bang the origin of the universe?Sixth, there are BB models that assume the universe has always existed, one is called the Endless Cycle model, which allows for a universe trillions of years old, which moves us much further in the direction of "infinite universe" than the standard model which says the age of the universe is merely in the billions of years:
It is a common misconception that the Big Bang was the origin of the universe. In reality, the Big Bang scenario is completely silent about how the universe came into existence in the first place. In fact, the closer we look to time "zero," the less certain we are about what actually happened, because our current description of physical laws do not yet apply to such extremes of nature. (see here)
Finally, new discoveries allege that there are not just trillions of stars, but trillions of galaxies:
The Cyclic Theory agrees that there was some violent event 14 billion years ago – we still call it a "big bang" – but this was not the beginning of space and time. The key events causing the creation of matter, radiation, galaxies and stars occurred billions of years before the bang. Furthermore, there was not just one bang. The evolution of the universe is cyclic with big bangs occurring once every trillion or so, each one accompanied by the creation of new matter and radiation that forms new galaxies, stars, planets, and presumably life. Ours is only the most recent cycle.(see here)
Up to now, astronomers usually said we know of about 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe (meaning out to our event horizon, a look-back time of 13.8 billion years). Now the number can be said to be about 2 trillion, with the caveat that this estimate doesn't go back a full 13.8 billion years, it's 600 million years short. (here).
One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the universe contains. The landmark Hubble Deep Field, taken in the mid-1990s, gave the first real insight into the universe's galaxy population. Subsequent sensitive observations such as Hubble's Ultra Deep Field revealed a myriad of faint galaxies. This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies.And don't even get me started on the linguistic absurdities of the standard BB model, whereby we are supposed to believe incoherent concepts like the "beginning" of "time", which logically implies a time before time.
The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low. (here)
I do not propose the new developments to make an infinite universe the only reasonable interpretation. I'm more conservatively only setting forth such official science statements to show that Frank Turek's Christian dogmatism about how the BB implies a limited universe, is entirely unwarranted and smacks more of preaching to the choir, than of dispassionate scholasticism.
I would think it borders on dishonest for Turek to pretend that his particular version of the BB theory is so sufficiently supported that he can just pretend that the other models, which admit the universe has an infinite history and size, are unworthy of serious consideration. Even if a big bang happened, no, Dr. Turek, that does not automatically imply a "spaceless, timeless, immaterial intelligence".
Monday, January 14, 2019
Cold Case Christianity: Yes, Christian hypocrisy falsifies some New Testament promises
This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled
By the way, Jesus apparently wanted unbelievers to conclude Christianity was true from the fact that his disciples consistently followed his morals:
If Christianity did not assure its followers that they are transformed, you wouldn't be having a problem.
So technically, Christians sinning obviously doesn't operate to deny the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead (which is very weak on historical grounds anyway), but their sinning DOES falsify portions of Christianity that promise the believer that they won't sin. Yes, 1st John makes room for the possibility of Christians sinning, but that does not automatically require that we become obligated to harmonize the "you won't sin" stuff with the "you might sin" stuff and accept any logically possibly harmonization scenario.
I see nothing wrong with assuming the author of 1st John was like most of today's Christians...he held to an inconsistent theology.
We ask the same question of Catholics and their papal infallibility doctrine: How exactly has papal infallibility or the changeless nature of the biblical text resulted in any theological benefit to Christians? Doesn't their ceaseless division over interpretation and bible doctrine thwart any good the changeless nature of the text might otherwise have bequeathed?
But Christians have a more difficult problem because it doesn't matter if the NT ethics are publicly known, Christians disagree with them. Smart Christians realize not all stealing is sin, not all lying is sin, not all intimate contact before marriage is sin, and dumb Christians seriously argue that the NT doesn't condemn homosexuality. No, it is far from clear that a Christian's committment to the NT thus arms his critics with potential to critique him. He can do away with anything in the bible he doesn't like, through the artifice of interpretation. And after that point, he isn't acting contrary to NT ethics, because you either misunderstand the NT, or you don't realize that those 1st standards no longer apply 21st century Christians.
And lets not forget the many Christians who have tried the conservative approach and failed because their genetics cause them to find normative human behavior too enticing to resist.
Thus increasing the chances that the Christian reader will be misled by a superficial treatment of the issues.Our “Quick Shot” series offers brief answers to common objections to the Christian worldview.
Somehow, I'm not feeling threatened by your apologetics.Each response is limited to one paragraph.
So if an atheist did something similar and offered the reader a response that (1) answers the Christian objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenges the Christian objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate an "unbeliever" conversation, you would agree that this shows objectivity on the part of the atheist.These responses are designed to (1) answer the objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenge the objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate a “gospel” conversation.
No. But if we claimed atheism was guided by a higher intelligence that wasn't 'god', and that as long as you are sincere in seeking out and living by that intelligence, your life will be morally transformed, then the better the evidence that a person was a "real" atheist, and the better the evidence that no serious moral transformation has taken place despite their years of being a committed atheist, then the more likely it would be that atheism was false. The problem would not be limited to the individual person failing to live up to their professed standard. The standard itself would appear to be false. In the case of other atheists who did undergo a moral transformation, this would not show that the intelligence causing the moral transformation existed, because such a change would be explainable in purely naturalistic terms not requiring the positing of any higher intelligence.In this article, we’re offering “Quick Shot” responses to the objection, Quick Shot: “Christian hypocrisy proves Christianity is false.”Response #1:“Does atheist hypocrisy prove atheism is false?
By the way, Jesus apparently wanted unbelievers to conclude Christianity was true from the fact that his disciples consistently followed his morals:
16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16 NAU)That means Jesus wasn't really smart, otherwise, under the same principle, non-atheists should glorify atheism if they find atheists walking according to "atheist morals".
If Christianity did not assure its followers that they are transformed, you wouldn't be having a problem.
If the scientist claims to be guided by an omniscient invisible and 100% honest space alien, how long would you trifle about the fact that his dishonesty doesn't necessarily disprove the existence of the honest space alien? Not long.If a scientist lies about his findings, does this undermine all scientific endeavors, or just expose a single hypocrite?
Unless the belief system you pretend to follow insists that you'll stop sinning if you are truly born again. It does:All of us are hypocritical in some way; it’s part of our human condition. We are consistently inconsistent, some more than others. This says less about our respective belief systems than it does about our human condition.
No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)Wallace continues:
No, atheism has never made claims that it causes its followers to become more morally conservative. If you delete the parts of the bible that assure Christians of a new morally conservative nature in Christ, then bunches of Christians sinning wouldn't operate to falsify Christianity.I won’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some atheists against atheism as a whole, if you don’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some Christians against Christianity as a whole. Does that sound fair?
So technically, Christians sinning obviously doesn't operate to deny the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead (which is very weak on historical grounds anyway), but their sinning DOES falsify portions of Christianity that promise the believer that they won't sin. Yes, 1st John makes room for the possibility of Christians sinning, but that does not automatically require that we become obligated to harmonize the "you won't sin" stuff with the "you might sin" stuff and accept any logically possibly harmonization scenario.
I see nothing wrong with assuming the author of 1st John was like most of today's Christians...he held to an inconsistent theology.
Yes, I think so, but not according to Jesus, who takes the possibility of others critiquing his follower's behavior, as a motive for them to act righteously so they don't give the critics an excuse:Isn’t it more important to examine the evidence for our claims than to critique each other’s misbehavior?”
46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:46-48 NAU)
28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?Apostle Paul also felt possible critique from unbelievers was a reason to avoid certain behavior:
29 "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' (Lk. 14:28-30 NAU)
23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? (1 Cor. 14:23 NAU)Wallace continues:
One has to wonder about the allegedly changeless text of the bible over the centuries. It certainly hasn't proven itself to be of any benefit to the churches using it, which disagree with each other on nearly every bit of theology taught therein, except perhaps God's existence and Jesus' gender. God is like the stupid father who tries to assure his daughter she can get to college reliably, with a new car...but never gives her the keys.Response #2:“Why would you be surprised when a Christian behaves hypocritically? There are two reasons why Christians will always be considered more hypocritical than non-Christians. First, our worldview is public and objective rather than private and subjective. Non-Christians understand the standard Christians are trying to personify. It is publicly available (just read a Bible) and hasn’t changed in two thousand years.
We ask the same question of Catholics and their papal infallibility doctrine: How exactly has papal infallibility or the changeless nature of the biblical text resulted in any theological benefit to Christians? Doesn't their ceaseless division over interpretation and bible doctrine thwart any good the changeless nature of the text might otherwise have bequeathed?
That's not true of most unbelievers. They all have friends and family who recognize that person's unique morality. Unbelievers are often involved in personal relationships where a moral act by one of them causes more intimacy or even division. Saying unbelievers keep their morality hidden is total bullshit.Christians, however, have no idea if an unbeliever is violating his or her moral standard because the unbeliever holds it privately as a matter of personal opinion.
But Christians have a more difficult problem because it doesn't matter if the NT ethics are publicly known, Christians disagree with them. Smart Christians realize not all stealing is sin, not all lying is sin, not all intimate contact before marriage is sin, and dumb Christians seriously argue that the NT doesn't condemn homosexuality. No, it is far from clear that a Christian's committment to the NT thus arms his critics with potential to critique him. He can do away with anything in the bible he doesn't like, through the artifice of interpretation. And after that point, he isn't acting contrary to NT ethics, because you either misunderstand the NT, or you don't realize that those 1st standards no longer apply 21st century Christians.
All you are doing now is preaching to your classical theist choir. You wouldn't be able to get away with this if you were talking to a bunch of Christians who denied god's perfection, such as open-theists.Secondly, the Christian standard is grounded in the perfect moral nature of God.
Which makes them stupid for trying. How long will you try to jump 200 feet in the air utilizing no other propulsion mechanism than your own unaided biological muscular strength...before you decide that the impossibility of ever achieving the goal constitutes good reason to give up? 4 days?While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.
And lets not forget the many Christians who have tried the conservative approach and failed because their genetics cause them to find normative human behavior too enticing to resist.
Probably because you don't know your NT very well. Several passages express or imply that human beings can actually achieve all that God requires of them. See Luke 1:6:We know – in advance- that we will always fall short of the mark.
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.Really? God thought they were righteous because they walked blamelessly in all his commands? Wouldn't that contradict Romans 3:10-23? No, of course not. If the asshole defense attorney can think of a logically possible way to reconcile evidence of his client's guilt, with his own theory that his client is innocent, well then gee, the jury has no choice but to see things his way or admit their own stupidity...right?
6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Lk. 1:5-6 NAU)
Correction, posited by your particular fundamentalist form of Christianity. Many other Christians, with good reason, are far more relaxed about sin. Like James Patrick Holding, whose 20 years of internet apologetics still has him engaging in the sin of slandering even more than he did when he first started. I'm waiting for the day when Holding writes an article entitled "Why Jesus might want you to tell lies about other people".Given the objectively high, public standard posited by Christianity,
because the NT makes very plain that those who sin are hypocrites who never knew Jesus:why would you ever be surprised to witness Christian hypocrisy,
6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)But actually we aren't surprised when Christians sin, we just note that it often conflicts with what the particular hypocrite professes to believe about his own moral obligations under Christ.
and why would you hold this against Christianity, rather than applaud Christianity for its high standard?”
Remove the "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" bullshit from the NT, then sinful Christians won't falsify Christianity's promise to morally transform people.
Wrong, Luke 1:6.While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Cold Case Christianity: Wallace's question-begging attempt to salvage the argument from logic
This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled
And by the way, Wallace, your answers here are logically consistent...meaning your attempt to account for the laws of logic are already presupposing the validity of the very logic you pretend to be giving an independent accounting of.
That's called begging the question. You can coherently talk about the time before Billy tied his shoe, but you cannot coherently talk about the time before time. Likewise, you can coherently talk about where babies come from, because the answer wouldn't require you to beg the question of the baby's existence, but you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, because your answer would have to be in conformity to logic first, before anybody would be intellectually obligated to pay attention to it.
You can possibly do that, of course, by giving a non-logical explanation for the laws of logic. That will safeguard you from begging the question, but then the fact that the answer is "non-logical" is more than sufficient to reasonably justify the atheist to toss it aside immediately without even bothering with it.
Face it buddy, you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, unless you wish to get stupid and pretend that some non-logical explanations are superior to the pro-logical explanations?
There is no such thing as the universe being caused, the universe is eternal and infinite. Otherwise, you'd have to admit it can be coherent t talk about the time before God created time, which is, of course, not coherent. Feel free to google William Lane Craig for the next 50 years, his foolish distinctions between logical and temporal causality do not make it possible to talk coherently about the beginning of time. The beginning of "time" is necessarily stupid and question-begging. Not to mention that "time" is completely man-made, and the bible does not express or imply God lives in some type of eternal "now" that is different than the temporal progression of events we experience on earth. That's just modern Christianity finding it irresistable to go beyond biblical revelation in their spiritually immature zeal to provide more specific rebuttal to the world than what God saw fit to authorize.
Unless you are a Pentecostal and you think every time you set forth theology not specifically backed up in the bible, this is supposed to be new revelation?
By the way, the bible never teaches that god created time, in fact, every biblical description of heavenly events portrays them as being limited to temporal progression no less than biblical authors describe earth-based events to be. Before you impress the babies with talk about God creating time, be sure you are on biblical footing. You aren't.
And if god has the power to eliminate imperfection, then he is no less responsible for continued imperfection on this earth, than the parent is responsible for the house burning down if they knew their kids were playing with matches, and chose to do nothing but sit there and watch...like god does. We call it "neglect".
When you blame God for logic, you say so with words that conform to the laws of logic...hence, begging the validity of the very logic that you are pretending to provide an independent accounting for.
Your argument to God from logic does precisely nothing to intellectually obligate the atheist to admit God's existence. You would have glorified your god more had you simply quoted the bible. Going beyond what is written is dangerous, and the devil can make you think your intellect is sufficient to fill up the theological gaps left by your bible. Don't be stupid.
Which is precisely why you are never going to "show" that such a foundation has a foundation.All rational discussions (even those related to the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes.
And by the way, Wallace, your answers here are logically consistent...meaning your attempt to account for the laws of logic are already presupposing the validity of the very logic you pretend to be giving an independent accounting of.
That's called begging the question. You can coherently talk about the time before Billy tied his shoe, but you cannot coherently talk about the time before time. Likewise, you can coherently talk about where babies come from, because the answer wouldn't require you to beg the question of the baby's existence, but you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, because your answer would have to be in conformity to logic first, before anybody would be intellectually obligated to pay attention to it.
You can possibly do that, of course, by giving a non-logical explanation for the laws of logic. That will safeguard you from begging the question, but then the fact that the answer is "non-logical" is more than sufficient to reasonably justify the atheist to toss it aside immediately without even bothering with it.
Face it buddy, you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, unless you wish to get stupid and pretend that some non-logical explanations are superior to the pro-logical explanations?
Not true. God's existence doesn't tell you to what degree he controls reality, anymore than saying "space alien" necessarily implies an eternal intelligence that can create other worlds with a snap of their fingers. All you are doing is blindly insisting on the conservative Christian definition of God (i.e., classical theism), and pretending such definition is the only one that is plausible. All you are doing is appealing to presuppositions your mostly conservative Christian audience already hold. You are like the open-theist who tells his followers: "If God exists, he is changeable, imperfect, and learns."Only theism, however, can adequately account for the existence of the transcendent Laws of Logic. If God exists, He is the absolute, objective, transcendent standard of truth; the Laws of Logic are simply a reflection of His nature.
You provide no biblical basis for this, you are just preaching to the choir. Furthermore, there are sufficient problems with the general concept of theism, that you are foolish to pretend that a theory of an intelligent invisible immaterial spaceless timeless thing is supposed to be "better" than any theory atheists might have, which would necessarily be somewhat more plausible by being grounded in empirical realities that can be checked and verified, at least somewhat more so than your invisible undetectable "god".God did not create these laws. They exist as an extension of His rational thinking, and for this reason, they are as eternal as God Himself.
No. But like the prosperity gospel and voodoo, as long as you think god is real, you can help yourself feel better about the cold cruel world. The same is true with respect to Hinduism and Mormonism. These aren't true religions either, but that does precisely nothing to ebb their popularity. Mormons are often confronted with hard times just like any Christian, and just like Christians, Mormons find great comfort and solace in prayer and in fellowship with others who share their specific theological presuppositions. But since you don't believe God is really giving them any comfort, we discover then the ability of human beings to be so deceived, they can feel comforted by mere thoughts about something that doesn't exist, in this case, the Mormon god.Is God real?
Without God as a source for the transcendent Laws of Logic, this question (and any logical journey toward the answer) would be impossible to examine.
Logic is axiomatic. You don't "examine" it, because the framework you'd have to use for analysis would be the assumption that the laws of logic are indeed valid, otherwise known as begging the question.
No doubt because you were an ignorant atheist and didn't realize what axioms were, and why they are exempt from explanatory theories.As an atheist, I rejected the existence of God and offered a number of objections and alternative explanations in an effort to account for the Laws of Logic.
Correct.In yesterday’s post we outlined the theistic explanation for these laws. Today and tomorrow we’ll examine several naturalistic objections to see if any of them might offer a viable alternative. We’ll begin with efforts to describe the Laws of Logic as “brute realities” of the universe:Objection:Aren’t the Laws of Logic simply the “brute” characteristics of reality? Both material and immaterial things must abide by boundaries of existence in order to exist in the first place. The “Laws of Logic” are simply a part of these boundaries. They are not transcendent laws from a Transcendent Mind; they are simply among the natural boundaries of existence.Both theists and atheists agree the Laws of Logic are brute somethings.
Correct.Atheists might claim Logic is a brute, innate fact of existence, while theists might argue Logic is a brute, innate reflection of the nature and thinking of God. In either case, these laws would have to be eternal, uncaused and necessary.
Which means arguments about why logic exists, cannot exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.Nothing can exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.
Your explanation is far more complex, controversial and contradictory than anything the atheist has to offer. The whole idea of a spaceless timeless immaterial intelligence is just stupid, and there is no compelling evidence that any such thing has ever existed, I don't give a shit how many times you refer to the mysterious deaths that occurred on the set of the Exorcist, or how the Lutz's seemed to be telling the truth about things that go bump in the night. You simply recite "eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent", and your devoted Christian followers come running to you like hungry cowboys come running at the sound of the dinner bell. You are preaching the choir, you are not refuting the atheist position. You are not a scholar providing rebuttal to another theory. You are a pastor banging his fist in church.But let’s now look at how both sides account for their existence:On AtheismThe brute Laws of Logic simply exist. They are eternal and uncaused. Nothing can exist without them. That’s just the way it is.On TheismGod is eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent.
Is this the part where your audience is supposed to shout "amen!" ?He is the all-knowing and all-powerful Creator; the necessary, uncaused first cause of all matter, space and time.
There is no such thing as the universe being caused, the universe is eternal and infinite. Otherwise, you'd have to admit it can be coherent t talk about the time before God created time, which is, of course, not coherent. Feel free to google William Lane Craig for the next 50 years, his foolish distinctions between logical and temporal causality do not make it possible to talk coherently about the beginning of time. The beginning of "time" is necessarily stupid and question-begging. Not to mention that "time" is completely man-made, and the bible does not express or imply God lives in some type of eternal "now" that is different than the temporal progression of events we experience on earth. That's just modern Christianity finding it irresistable to go beyond biblical revelation in their spiritually immature zeal to provide more specific rebuttal to the world than what God saw fit to authorize.
Unless you are a Pentecostal and you think every time you set forth theology not specifically backed up in the bible, this is supposed to be new revelation?
By the way, the bible never teaches that god created time, in fact, every biblical description of heavenly events portrays them as being limited to temporal progression no less than biblical authors describe earth-based events to be. Before you impress the babies with talk about God creating time, be sure you are on biblical footing. You aren't.
Which only make sense if he is physical, since your alleged "evidence" that intelligence can exist without physicality, is absurd, I don't care how many books by J.P. Moreland are on your library shelf.He has thoughts and possesses a particular character, essence and nature.
I'm an atheist, yet you are asking me to now suddenly discover that the Christians who are open-theist are wrong. Gee, how long would it take for us to get over that hurdle before you could legitimately continue to blindly presume the truth of your classical theism? 5 minutes? 50 years?Because He is all-powerful and all-knowing, these attributes are perfected (an all-powerful and all-knowing God has the power to eliminate imperfection).
And if god has the power to eliminate imperfection, then he is no less responsible for continued imperfection on this earth, than the parent is responsible for the house burning down if they knew their kids were playing with matches, and chose to do nothing but sit there and watch...like god does. We call it "neglect".
Then the bible cannot be the word of god, because it contradicts itself. Compare John 3:16 with Psalm 5:5, and check a thesaurus before you assure me that the opposite of love isn't hate but apathy. And be sure to specifically note: Psalm 5:5 doesn't say God merely hates the sin. In that verse God's hatred in upon the sinner or "worker" of iniquity, i.e., the person themself, not merely their sin. But there is no law against using your faulty concept of the NT to blind yourself to unChristian OT realities. There's also no law preventing toddlers from dumping a full bowl of cereal on their face and thinking this is the proper way to relieve hunger.The Laws of Logic are simply an attribute and reflection of God’s perfect existence; God does not create these laws, they are an innate and immutable aspect of His nature.
As God is necessary for all else to exist, so are the Laws of Logic. They are merely a reflection of His Being, and they permeate all of His creation.
No, that's the fallacy of begging the question. Your answer is already presupposing the validity of logic, when in fact you are supposed to be independently accounting for logic itself. Either break the circle by giving a non-logical answer, or admit that you cannot answer the question of why logic exists, without committing the fallacy of begging the question.
yup, the universe.Both the atheist and the theist agree something is eternal, uncaused and necessary.
That's your fault for asking us to give a logical answer to the question of where logic comes from. Your asking of such question is the problem, since what you ask cannot be answered without begging the question, which means the problem is with the person formulating the question. Any question that requires your answer to take the form of a logical fallacy, is therefore a fallacious question.But when the atheist says the Laws of Logic “simply exist”, he’s begging the question; he’s not providing an explanation for the eternal, uncaused and necessary existence of the laws (saying they exist does not provide us with an explanation for their existence).
When you blame God for logic, you say so with words that conform to the laws of logic...hence, begging the validity of the very logic that you are pretending to provide an independent accounting for.
Your case for theism sucks, as I've shown repeatedly at this blog. While god might be one explanation for what you perceive to be intelligent design, he isn't the only explanation, and by god being so complex himself, Ocaam's Razor would counsel that the god-explanation is less likely than any other.Theists, on the other hand, can make a case for God’s existence from a number of evidential lines, providing a reasonable foundation from which logical absolutes can then be elucidated.
That's your fault. If you correctly realized that logic is axiomatic, you'd understand why it is stupid and illogical to even ask why logic exists. Axioms are not subject to analysis. If they were, they wouldn't be "axioms".In addition, atheism fails to explain how the Laws of Logic can be eternal and uncaused and what role they play in causing all other contingent realities.
Theism, on the other hand, accounts for the existence of the Laws of Logic by pointing to the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent uncaused, first cause possessing perfect rationality (by virtue of His limitless power) who also acts as the first cause of all other dependent (contingent) creations.
Sorry, Wallace, but you are preaching to a narrow choir, there are plenty of Christian scholars who deny the bible-gods omniscience and omnipotence. You need to stop talking all bigoted like that if you wish to take on atheists. They are not going to shove aside every other viable Christian interpretation of the bible and "just" allow your blind assumption of classical theism to slide by without criticism. God's imperfection is clear from Genesis 6:6-7. The entire chapter is believed by classical theist Christians to be describing literal history, so there's no contextual justification to pretend that this particular passage therein is an "anthropomorphism" or something other than literal language. And the original recipients of that story certainly wouldn't have had systematic theology or bible inerrancy on the brain, so they more than likely took the claim at face value, without trifling about semantics the way an inerrantist or jailhouse lawyer would. So the passage is reasonably understood to be literal, and thus, God's regretting his own prior decision to create man is a strong indication of his imperfection. Did he know from all eternity that he would regret creating man? If God does things he knows he will regret, he has more in common with the impulsive teenager than he has with intelligence.
I've deleted your answer here because I'm one of those atheists who doesn't account for logic that way.Objection:Aren’t the “Laws of Logic” simply the result of observations we make of the world in which we live? We discovered the Laws of Physics from our observations of the natural world; can’t we discover the Laws of Logic in a similar way?
Your argument to God from logic does precisely nothing to intellectually obligate the atheist to admit God's existence. You would have glorified your god more had you simply quoted the bible. Going beyond what is written is dangerous, and the devil can make you think your intellect is sufficient to fill up the theological gaps left by your bible. Don't be stupid.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Cold Case Christianity: The Laws of Logic do not prove god's existence
This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled
But to the average person, that something "just exists" without an origin point, being contrary to their daily experience, it is almost impossible to accept that anything outside their "god" fairy tale could just exist as a brute truth. Welcome to the real world.
I have deleted the rest of Wallace's argument because the above conclusively shows the fallacy of trying to account for the laws of logic. One could avoid the questoin-begging problem by giving a non-logical account for the laws of logic, but by solving that problem you create another: if your answer is in fact, non-logical, only a fool would waste his time trying to 'seriously' consider its merits.
Therefore the laws of logic, being exempt from questions about why they exist, therefore do not express or imply "god". As soon as you ask somebody to account for the laws of logic, you are asking them to either give a non-logical answer, or to beg the question of logic's validity.
Now tell yourself God's ways are mysterious so you can feel better about how "accountable" atheists really are to your invisible nothing in the sky.
Most of us don’t think much about the physical or non-physical laws of the universe necessary for us to exist (and make sense of our existence). As an example, we usually take the law of gravity for granted; it doesn’t really matter how the law operates or what forces lie behind it. We simply accept the fact we live in a world where gravity is a reality. In a similar way, there are many conceptual laws we also take for granted. These abstract truths order our world and guide our exploration and experience. One area of conceptual truth involves a body of concepts we call the Laws of Logic. Is God real? The existence of the Laws of Logic may provide us with an answer.
All rational discussions (even those about the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes. You’d have a hard time making sense of any conversation if the Laws of Logic weren’t available to guide the discussion and provide rational boundaries. Here are three of the most important Laws of Logic you and I use every day:
That's precisely why logic is "axiomatic", and if you know what axioms are, then you recognize that they are exempt from the question of origins. That's why "where did logic come from" is an invalid question, despite how appealing it is to Christian apologists.
The Law of IdentityThings “are” what they “are”. “A” is “A”. Each thing is the same with itself and different from another. By this it is meant that each thing (be it a universal or a particular) is composed of its own unique set of characteristic qualities or features.The Law of Non-Contradiction“A” cannot be both “A” and “Non-A” at the same time, in the same way and in the same sense. Contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time.The Law of Excluded MiddleA statement is either true or false. For any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true. There is no middle position. For example, the claim that “A statement is either true or false” is either true or false.These logical rules are necessary in order for us to examine truth statements. We also need them to point out when someone is reasoning illogically. We use the Laws of Logic all the time; you couldn’t even begin to read or reason through this blog post if you didn’t employ these laws. In fact, you’ve never had an intelligent, rational conversation without using these laws. They’re not a matter of subjective opinion; they are, instead, objectively true. So, here’s an important question: “From where do the transcendent, objective laws of logic come?”
My answer to that question could not be serious unless it already
presupposed the validity of the very logic that the answer is supposed to be accounting
for. So asking where logic comes from, constitutes the logical fallacy
of begging the question. All questions that require the answer to
commit a logical fallacy, are illegitimate questions. Dismissed. Next?
See above, logic is axiomatic. There is no such thing accounting for axioms, anymore than there is sense in asking where god came from. In the ladder of reasoning, there is going to be an absolute first rung, and because it is first, there is no "where did it come from" to discuss in the first place. It's just there. But because most people are constantly bombarded with derivative things that originated from something else babies, clouds, pizza, cars, bibles) they are deceived into thinking that anything we can choose to discuss, surely "came from" somewhere. Not so. There are brute truths, which by their nature JUST ARE.As an atheist, I would have been the first to describe myself as rational. In fact, I saw myself as far more reasonable than many of the Christians I knew. But, I was basing my rationality on my ability to understand and employ the Laws of Logic. How could I account for these transcendent laws without the existence of a transcendent Law Giver?
But to the average person, that something "just exists" without an origin point, being contrary to their daily experience, it is almost impossible to accept that anything outside their "god" fairy tale could just exist as a brute truth. Welcome to the real world.
I have deleted the rest of Wallace's argument because the above conclusively shows the fallacy of trying to account for the laws of logic. One could avoid the questoin-begging problem by giving a non-logical account for the laws of logic, but by solving that problem you create another: if your answer is in fact, non-logical, only a fool would waste his time trying to 'seriously' consider its merits.
Therefore the laws of logic, being exempt from questions about why they exist, therefore do not express or imply "god". As soon as you ask somebody to account for the laws of logic, you are asking them to either give a non-logical answer, or to beg the question of logic's validity.
Now tell yourself God's ways are mysterious so you can feel better about how "accountable" atheists really are to your invisible nothing in the sky.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
The email about J.P. Holding I recently cc'd to many Indonesian churches and others
Hello,
I
am concerned that you don't know about the on-going ceaseless and
egregious sins of somebody that might be trying to gain a leadership
position of some sort at your church. I'm also concerned to make sure
my name is not further libeled or defamed by somebody trying to gain a
position of leadership with you. This email was sent to you in my
attempt to, at least partially, mitigate the damages this man presently
continues to inflict on my reputation.
This man claims
to be an "apologist" and is seeking to partner with "Indonesian"
churches of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles areas.
However,
he doesn't specify which exact churches, so in my effort to obey
Matthew 18 and tell his sins to the entire church, I had to collect many
email addresses that are associated with Indonesian churches in Los
Angeles and in Philadelphia, to make sure the specific churches this man
is trying to deceive, will be properly notified.
This man is also an author of articles in the Christian Research Journal, which seems to indicate he has also hoodwinked Christian Research Institute...or...they know about all this and simply don't think slander constitutes sin. This email is being cc'd to other non-Indonesian persons because they already know some of the history.
This man is also an author of articles in the Christian Research Journal, which seems to indicate he has also hoodwinked Christian Research Institute...or...they know about all this and simply don't think slander constitutes sin. This email is being cc'd to other non-Indonesian persons because they already know some of the history.
Everything
I say about this man in this email, and in the attached libel lawsuit,
and at my blog, linked below, are factual truths, not opinion or
satire. This is neither spam nor a joke. I am quite aware Mr. Holding
will try to use this email against me the next time I sue him for libel,
so I would hardly have cc'd this to him, as I've done, if I was afraid
that anything I allege herein is baseless, misleading, or otherwise
libelous/defamatory. It is all truthful fact.
This
man is biblically disqualified, due to his extensive sins and
unwillingness to cease those sins, from holding any office of Christian
"teacher" to any degree whatsoever, at least among the conservative
evangelical churches he aligns himself with.
His name
is James Patrick Holding, formerly "Robert Turkel". Before he dissolved
the corporation, his ministry was called "Apologetics Afield".
I
have a problem with you people donating money to this person for his
"services" of "apologetics", while being ignorant that he is beset with
many presently on-going sins that he has no intentions of ceasing.
Unless you think Christian teachers have no obligation to walk in the
light, read on.
Mr. Holding has been slandering and reviling me for years. The bible obviously identifies slander as sin,
and apostle Paul requires the church to disfellowship the brother who engages in "reviling" (i.e., slander).
17 "Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?
18 "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
(Matt. 15:17-20 NAU)
and apostle Paul requires the church to disfellowship the brother who engages in "reviling" (i.e., slander).
9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;
10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:9-13 NAU)
Mr
Holding has defamed me so much that I had to file two libel lawsuits
against him. The attached pdf, is the latest lawsuit I filed against
him. You will more than likely be shocked at his foul language, his
need to use language making him sound like a closet-homosexual, and his
pathological need to slander anybody and everybody he disagrees with.
Mr.
Holding escaped having to answer the first lawsuit on the merits, with
the artifice of "lack of jurisdiction". He then escaped having to
answer the second lawsuit because the judge incorrectly held that I
lacked standing to sue. Since these two lucky wins, Mr. Holding feels
himself utterly unaccountable for his sins of slander, which he
continued to commit even after he narrowly escaped the first two
lawsuits. There is literally no reasoning with this scoundrel whatsoever.
I've
informed Mr. Holding about a year ago I'd be filing a third libel
lawsuit against him. Not only did he continue libeling me, he began to
libel and slander me even more. Telling this man to stop
committing the sin of slander not only accomplishes nothing, it makes
the situation worse by inciting him to commit those sins with greater
frequency and intensity. Worse, Mr. Holding likely realizes this third
lawsuit will be litigated all the way into jury trial, costing him at
least $50,000 in legal fees, money that he likely doesn't have...yet he
absolutely will not stop slandering me in ways that constitute "libel"
under American law, despite my numerous attempts to settle these matters
with him out of court.
Matthew
18 requires those aware of a brother's sin to confront him privately and
then do so again with witnesses to get him to repent.
I
have already tried this, multiple times, and not only does he not
listen, he rebuffs those attempts as foolish. He insists he is not
sinning, despite the fact that his lies about me including falsely
accusing me of crimes I've never committed.
He never
never expressed or even implied the least bit of genuine remorse or
sorrow for these sins, and he has never apologized to me, ever. This
man seems to have some sort of demon that causes him to mistake the sin
of slander for holy rebuke. I don't see anything wrong with holy
rebuke. But that's a far cry from this man's many sins of "bearing
false witness".
So now I must tell his sin to the entire church, as the third step in the Matthew 18 disfellowshipping process:
15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
17 "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
(Matt. 18:15-17 NAU)
There,
I document Mr. Holding's great sinfulness in detail. No fool would
think this homosexual scoundrel was even remotely qualified to be a
"teacher" in the conservative evangelical churches he doctrinally aligns
himself with, all of whom think slander is sin, all of whom think
homosexuality is a sin.
I would
hope you would agree with me that this man's continuing sins need to
cease, and he needs to show genuine remorse for them, and he needs to
make just and fair reparations to me for all the reputation-damages and
emotional distress he has inflicted on me, before you can consider him
to be biblically qualified to hold any office of Christian "teacher".
And he who spreads slander is a fool. (Prov. 10:18)Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)
And he who spreads slander is a fool. (Prov. 10:18)Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)
If you wish to contact him about this matter, Holding's email address is
jphold@att.net
All
I ask is that you first obtain his confession of these sins, and that
you are satisfied he exhibits genuine repentance over them and that you
are satisfied he has made some type of reparation to me for these
libels, before you start giving him money. he doesn't use your money
merely for his ministry, he also uses to post defamatory cartoon videos
about me to his juvenile delinquent YouTube channel,
Sincerely,
Christian Doscher
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
Monday, January 7, 2019
James Patrick Holding is likely partnering with City Blessing Church
Since Mr. Holding appears to care about ceasing to slander me about as much as a hungry alligator wishes to walk away from a fresh kill, I post the following in the effort to mitigate the reputation damage I endure or will likely endure. I have good reason to believe I discovered the identity of the Indonesian church that Holding is trying to sell his dogshit apologetics to, so it only makes sense that I reveal that here and then supply them with comprehensive reasons to take whatever Holding says about me, with a few barrels of salt.
James Patrick Holding tells about his attempts to interest another church is his apologetics bullshit, but for unknown reasons, refuses to tell the reader the identity of that other church.
He is, again, questionably ambiguous about exactly through whom he partners so that donations to him become tax-deductible:
The only Indonesian church I could find in the Orlando area, that had any hope of being the one Holding was talking about, was the City Blessing Church, pastored by Freddy Liwang, see here. If you wish to warn those church leaders away from Holding, their email addresses, which I gleaned from their publicly acessible websites, are
---------------------------------
Holding has an extremely serious pathological desire to commit the sin of slander against me, a sin that has been in full force since long before 2015, and all such sins of which I have fully documented both at this blog, and in the two libel lawsuits I filed against him in the past, which you can access here.
The two documents from that link that would most extensively record Mr. Holding's libels are:
What would you think of a Christian apologist who thought committing adultery was a sign of spiritual maturity? Would you donate to his dogshit ministry? Not likely, some things simply aren't open for debate?
Indeed, Mr. Holding is so sick-headed with his own pathological narcissism (i.e., the only people who "follow" him are other like-minded juvenile delinquents who mistake his self-gloating defamatory cartoon videos for serious scholarly substance/spiritual maturity, while actual serious scholars who previously publicly supported him, have withdrawn that support for obvious reasons), he actually thinks that his filthy slanders and false accusations against his critics constitute spiritually mature conduct.
He certainly isn't going to say the conduct he's been engaging in for 20 years shows spiritual immaturity, so he doesn't have a lot of room to trifle about the significance of the trail of verbal garbage he has left behind in his sinful tirades, which otherwise is about the only thing that he is "famous" for.
Mr. Holding is also a hypocrite; you don't find him saying filthy things or slandering others when he is authoring articles for other Christian organizations such as Christian Research Institute. And despite his strong belief in the spiritual goodness of insult, he never even once insulted atheist Richard Carrier during their live debate in 2011. Maybe Holding's bible has a verse that says namecalling is only allowed to be done over the internet?
This man continues to libel me presently on youtube and other websites, almost as if his escaping having to answer the merits of the prior two libel lawsuits (though technicalities) somehow emboldened him to think he was absolutely immune to any possible libel suit.
Search "turchisrong" and "James Patrick Holding" on google, and you will see all of my extensive documentation here that Mr. Holding is a closet-homosexual, is disowned by his own favorite scholars, and because his violations of Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 3:8 are deliberate and willful, he is disqualified from holding any type of "teaching" position in any "Christian" church.
It is not without good reason that James 3:1 discourages most Christians from becoming "teachers".
Even if you aren't a "bible scholar", do you really need to be told that there are ZERO legitimately credentialed evangelical Christian scholars who agree with Holding's absurd view that Jesus wants his followers to go around slandering their critics?
Mike Licona and Gary Habermas strongly advise Christians against slander, as I've documented. See here.
Craig Blomberg agrees, as I've documented. See here.
Plenty of legitimately credentialed Christian scholars agree, as I've documented, see here.
Back in 2008, the one scholar that Mr. Holding depended on the most to justify saying the bible authorizes today's Christians to insult and belittle their critics (Dr. Richard Rohrbaugh) made perfectly clear, after analyzing a sample of Mr. Holding's gratuitously insulting language toward me, that Mr. Holding
In 2015, Dr. Rohrbaugh cursorily reviewed Mr. Holding's most definitive article in defense of name-calling and slander (an article that quoted Rohrbaugh), and said it was an "obvious perversion" of Rohrbaugh's own work, a perversion of all Context Group work, a perversion of the entire New Testament, and was so bad, he did not even deem the article worthy of any response. See here (search for "obvious perversion" to quickly locate Rohrbaugh's actual comment).
In short, Mr. Holding's sin of slander arises from his absurd interpretation of the bible, i.e., that the bible authorizes today's Christian to hurl abusive shaming insults and epithets at anybody whom they disagree with. It also arises from his genetics, since most mature responsible adults do not consistently manifest a pathological need to constantly spread factually and legally false information about other people. If you cannot condemn a dog for barking...
I have never falsely accused Mr. Holding, he really is a slanderer and closet homosexual. But he is also too chickenshit to debate me in a true scholarly way.
His idea of "debate" is to upload defamatory cartoon videos to YouTube, wait for me to make my own reply here, so he can then post another reply-video there. Mr. Holding would rather die than actually confront me in a real-time debate. But he is going to endure it anyway because I'm going to be suing him again for libel per se, and I'll be taking a full deposition of him as we both sit at the same table, with video camera and court reporter recording everything, with intent to use Mr. Holding's answers to impeach his credibility at trial.
(Oh, did I mention? Mr. Holding's current libels against me are occurring after he spent $21,000 in legal fees to get my prior libels lawsuits dismissed. Normally somebody getting that lucky would "learn the lesson", but Mr. Holding has misconstrued his two lucky wins as a sign that God wants him to continue telling defamatory lies about me to the world at large. How's that for pathological obstinacy?)
And even if his name-calling were biblically justified, he would still be guilty of sin: the bible obviously requires Christians to refrain from falsely accusing others. Mr. Holding has not merely called me names, he has slandered and reviled me, numerous times as my documentation shows, supra.
Now what? Maybe Holding will have a vision of God and suddenly discover that there are times when falsely accusing another person can possibly be good and holy?
No, the bible forbids any such foolishness:
...it's one of the 10 commandments, so perhaps Holding just never knew this was in the bible?
Moses elsewhere specified you shall show no mercy to the one who has falsely accused another:
Holding's prior sins of slander include characterizing his critics as having giant penises which they use to hit other people in the head with. See here, and search for "pee".
Christian apologist Steve Hays in 2005 accused Holding of having an unsavory attraction to homoerotic terms. In 2016 Hays tried to pretend that these words of his were mere satire or otherwise "just kidding", but I proved Hays to be a first-rate liar, with an examination of the full context of that 2005 post. See here.
See my own study of the Greek terms at issue in Paul's condemnation of slander and libel, here.
(search for the phrase "NT ethical principles would demand that these things arguably legitimately question whether he is "saved" at all")
Apostle Peter condemns slander:
If you have any specific questions, for example, you aren't quite sure just yet whether the bible's prohibitions on false accusations are absolute, I'll be happy to answer them here, or in private email, barryjoneswhat@gmailcom.
James Patrick Holding tells about his attempts to interest another church is his apologetics bullshit, but for unknown reasons, refuses to tell the reader the identity of that other church.
In 2018, we have two missions afield planned.see here.
The first will be to a church in Philadelphia which is the church home for immigrants from Indonesia. I already have a link to the parent organization of this church, and I regularly attend the branch church in the Orlando area.
He is, again, questionably ambiguous about exactly through whom he partners so that donations to him become tax-deductible:
The first will be to a church in Atlanta which is the church home for immigrants from Indonesia. Yes, this is associated with the same parent organization of the branch church I regularly attend in the Orlando area. I am making the rounds, so to speak, as a prelude to a planned trip to Indonesia itself.see here.
...All donations are tax-deductible, though as I noted in my ministry manifesto, I will now be working through third party organizations rather than one of my own. You will receive a receipt from that third party organization I am working with.
The only Indonesian church I could find in the Orlando area, that had any hope of being the one Holding was talking about, was the City Blessing Church, pastored by Freddy Liwang, see here. If you wish to warn those church leaders away from Holding, their email addresses, which I gleaned from their publicly acessible websites, are
Fredy Liwang
fliwang@gmail.com
Orlando, FL
1450 Citrus Oaks Gotha, Fl 34734
1450 Citrus Oaks Gotha, Fl 34734
---------------------------------
This is a message to City Blessing Church
or whatever Indonesian church Holding attends:
or whatever Indonesian church Holding attends:
Holding has an extremely serious pathological desire to commit the sin of slander against me, a sin that has been in full force since long before 2015, and all such sins of which I have fully documented both at this blog, and in the two libel lawsuits I filed against him in the past, which you can access here.
The two documents from that link that would most extensively record Mr. Holding's libels are:
- 01 - State Lawsuit, Doscher v. Holding, and even more extensively,
- 11 - Federal lawsuit, Doscher v. Holding
What would you think of a Christian apologist who thought committing adultery was a sign of spiritual maturity? Would you donate to his dogshit ministry? Not likely, some things simply aren't open for debate?
Indeed, Mr. Holding is so sick-headed with his own pathological narcissism (i.e., the only people who "follow" him are other like-minded juvenile delinquents who mistake his self-gloating defamatory cartoon videos for serious scholarly substance/spiritual maturity, while actual serious scholars who previously publicly supported him, have withdrawn that support for obvious reasons), he actually thinks that his filthy slanders and false accusations against his critics constitute spiritually mature conduct.
He certainly isn't going to say the conduct he's been engaging in for 20 years shows spiritual immaturity, so he doesn't have a lot of room to trifle about the significance of the trail of verbal garbage he has left behind in his sinful tirades, which otherwise is about the only thing that he is "famous" for.
Mr. Holding is also a hypocrite; you don't find him saying filthy things or slandering others when he is authoring articles for other Christian organizations such as Christian Research Institute. And despite his strong belief in the spiritual goodness of insult, he never even once insulted atheist Richard Carrier during their live debate in 2011. Maybe Holding's bible has a verse that says namecalling is only allowed to be done over the internet?
This man continues to libel me presently on youtube and other websites, almost as if his escaping having to answer the merits of the prior two libel lawsuits (though technicalities) somehow emboldened him to think he was absolutely immune to any possible libel suit.
Search "turchisrong" and "James Patrick Holding" on google, and you will see all of my extensive documentation here that Mr. Holding is a closet-homosexual, is disowned by his own favorite scholars, and because his violations of Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 3:8 are deliberate and willful, he is disqualified from holding any type of "teaching" position in any "Christian" church.
It is not without good reason that James 3:1 discourages most Christians from becoming "teachers".
Even if you aren't a "bible scholar", do you really need to be told that there are ZERO legitimately credentialed evangelical Christian scholars who agree with Holding's absurd view that Jesus wants his followers to go around slandering their critics?
Mike Licona and Gary Habermas strongly advise Christians against slander, as I've documented. See here.
Craig Blomberg agrees, as I've documented. See here.
Plenty of legitimately credentialed Christian scholars agree, as I've documented, see here.
Back in 2008, the one scholar that Mr. Holding depended on the most to justify saying the bible authorizes today's Christians to insult and belittle their critics (Dr. Richard Rohrbaugh) made perfectly clear, after analyzing a sample of Mr. Holding's gratuitously insulting language toward me, that Mr. Holding
- gives Christianity a bad name
- does not deserve to be given the time of day
- is a boor with no manners, and
- sounds like somebody in serious need of psychological help.
In 2015, Dr. Rohrbaugh cursorily reviewed Mr. Holding's most definitive article in defense of name-calling and slander (an article that quoted Rohrbaugh), and said it was an "obvious perversion" of Rohrbaugh's own work, a perversion of all Context Group work, a perversion of the entire New Testament, and was so bad, he did not even deem the article worthy of any response. See here (search for "obvious perversion" to quickly locate Rohrbaugh's actual comment).
In short, Mr. Holding's sin of slander arises from his absurd interpretation of the bible, i.e., that the bible authorizes today's Christian to hurl abusive shaming insults and epithets at anybody whom they disagree with. It also arises from his genetics, since most mature responsible adults do not consistently manifest a pathological need to constantly spread factually and legally false information about other people. If you cannot condemn a dog for barking...
I have never falsely accused Mr. Holding, he really is a slanderer and closet homosexual. But he is also too chickenshit to debate me in a true scholarly way.
His idea of "debate" is to upload defamatory cartoon videos to YouTube, wait for me to make my own reply here, so he can then post another reply-video there. Mr. Holding would rather die than actually confront me in a real-time debate. But he is going to endure it anyway because I'm going to be suing him again for libel per se, and I'll be taking a full deposition of him as we both sit at the same table, with video camera and court reporter recording everything, with intent to use Mr. Holding's answers to impeach his credibility at trial.
(Oh, did I mention? Mr. Holding's current libels against me are occurring after he spent $21,000 in legal fees to get my prior libels lawsuits dismissed. Normally somebody getting that lucky would "learn the lesson", but Mr. Holding has misconstrued his two lucky wins as a sign that God wants him to continue telling defamatory lies about me to the world at large. How's that for pathological obstinacy?)
And even if his name-calling were biblically justified, he would still be guilty of sin: the bible obviously requires Christians to refrain from falsely accusing others. Mr. Holding has not merely called me names, he has slandered and reviled me, numerous times as my documentation shows, supra.
Now what? Maybe Holding will have a vision of God and suddenly discover that there are times when falsely accusing another person can possibly be good and holy?
No, the bible forbids any such foolishness:
...it's one of the 10 commandments, so perhaps Holding just never knew this was in the bible?
16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exod. 20:16 NAU)Gee, I don't live next door to Holding, so maybe he is thus free to falsely accuse me?
Moses elsewhere specified you shall show no mercy to the one who has falsely accused another:
16 "If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing,John the Baptist condemned those who falsely accuse others:
17 then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.
18 "The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely,
19 then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
20 "The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you.
21 "Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deut. 19:16-21 NAU)
14 Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages." (Lk. 3:14 NAU)Jesus condemned anyone who committed "slander":
18 "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.Apostle Paul demanded that you disfellowship or excommunicate any so-called "Christian brother" who engages in the sin of reviling (i.e., slander):
19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man." (Matt. 15:18-20 NAU)
9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;Paul also believed that the sins of abusive speech, slander and coarse jesting, sins that are abundant in Mr. Holding's "apologetics", are the reason why God's wrath continues to abide on many:
10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:9-13 NAU)
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;Holding's filthy jesting toward his critics are also some of his sins which I've extensively documented, here.
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; (Eph. 5:1-7 NAU)
5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him-- (Col. 3:5-10 NAU)
Holding's prior sins of slander include characterizing his critics as having giant penises which they use to hit other people in the head with. See here, and search for "pee".
Christian apologist Steve Hays in 2005 accused Holding of having an unsavory attraction to homoerotic terms. In 2016 Hays tried to pretend that these words of his were mere satire or otherwise "just kidding", but I proved Hays to be a first-rate liar, with an examination of the full context of that 2005 post. See here.
See my own study of the Greek terms at issue in Paul's condemnation of slander and libel, here.
(search for the phrase "NT ethical principles would demand that these things arguably legitimately question whether he is "saved" at all")
Apostle Peter condemns slander:
1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,And he who spreads slander is a fool. (Prov. 10:18 NAU)
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, (1 Pet. 2:1-2 NAU)
If you have any specific questions, for example, you aren't quite sure just yet whether the bible's prohibitions on false accusations are absolute, I'll be happy to answer them here, or in private email, barryjoneswhat@gmailcom.
Friday, December 28, 2018
James Patrick Holding running scared? Yes, apparently
A few months ago, James Patrick Holding asserted that his tax issues related to his ministry work would be handled by third parties:
In another blog entry, Holding said anybody who makes a tax deductible donation will receive a receipt for this from the third party organization he works with:
See here, it's the second-to-last paragraph.
Since Mr. Holding, even on his website and blogs announcing this shit, didn't disclose the name of this third-party organization he is working with, I decided to donate one dollar, in the hopes that I would get a receipt from this third-party and therefore obtain enough information to contact them and inform them about how Mr. Holding's past and current desire to engage in slander utterly disqualifies him from any teaching position in any Christian turch.
Well...tThe most fearsome spiritual warrior in God's army, James Patrick Holding, issued me a refund very quickly, and I still haven't gotten a receipt that identifies any third-party organization that Holding is working with. Here's the emailed refund receipt:
So unless some fool wishes to trifle that maybe there's another third party out there who has the same exact name as Holding's Apologetics Afield corporation, it's pretty clear that it is Holding himself who paid the refund.
In other words, Mr. Holding was aware that I would find out the identity of the third party organization he works with, if he kept that dollar. Therefore, Mr. Holding's refund is reasonably interpreted to signify that he didn't want me to know which third party organization he works with.
Gee...why would Mr. Holding fear my knowing something like that? Could it be that he has, once again, successfully hoodwinked this third party, and he hasn't given them what I would give them...the level of detail regarding his many sins of slander that utterly disqualify him from teaching ministry?
Holding will, of course, boast that this is not the reason, but then let him supply me the name, website, email address and physical address of the third-party organization he works with, then we can confirm that his dogshit excuse is actually serious. Since that won't be happening, at least not until I force to make such disclosure through the legal process, then no, Holding's denial isn't serious, its motivated by nothing but a narcissistic pathological need to constantly barge ahead and look good regardless of how much evidence there is that he is not good.
Unfortunately for Holding, all he is doing is increasing legal costs for himself.
You see, this was my attempt to learn, in cheap fashion, the identity of other people Holding is likely to have communicated with regarding myself or regarding the the two prior libel lawsuits I filed against him. And that's something that is obviously relevant to my planned future libel lawsuit against him.
Since he doesn't wish to do this the easy way, we'll do it the hard way, and I'll be asking him, in the discovery phase of the next lawsuit I file against him, to identity that third party organization. After all, I've made enough noise on the internet about him that it is at least reasonably likely that they googled his name, they found my documentation of his many sins of slander, and like any good Christian church, were concerned and thus can be plausibly presumed to have had discussions with Holding that involved the subject of myself and my two prior lawsuits against him.
And if Holding stupidly tries to tell the jury all I wanted to do in this was defame him to this third-party organization, I will confront him with the reason for this (i.e., I will confront him with my personal motivation for wishing to get in contact with this Holding's third-party ministry partner...it is because
a) they are Christians who believe the bible is the word of God.
b) the bible makes abundantly clear that foul jesting, abusive speech and slander are sin,
c) the bible makes abundantly clear that any "brother" who engages in "reviling" or the like is to be shunned,
d) the good people of this third-party church deserve to know ALL of the gory details about Holding's past and present slanders,
e) lest they pretend that I falsely accuse Holding, they also deserve to know why it is that my past and future lawsuits against him were and will be legally and factually justified in full, that the courts who dismissed the last two lawsuits were in error to do so, and therefore, I am accusing Holding of disobeying Romans 13 by disobeying the secular civil laws, here, the laws asserting that libel is a civil injustice that is actionable for damages in court.
f) thus leaving this third party wondering what to believe, the simple evidence confirming all of this, or Holding's trifling excuses in his effort to "explain" everything away.
I sincerely believe that Mr. Holding's ceaseless slanders and foul jesting render him disqualified, under biblical criteria, from the office of Christian teacher. If Holding is going to place my personal motives at issue, then I'll be testifying as to what exactly they were.
That's the fucked up situation you put yourself in when you
a) go around constantly slandering others, yet
b) you also want other Christian churches to think that you are free from the sin of slander
What's this going to take in terms of time and money? The B and E aspects of my mission will be developed each year, and I will tie fundraising into specific mission trips. As each set of trips is planned, we'll announce for specific fundraising needs that will cover the need for everything from travel to personnal expense. All of this will be done under the banner of Apologetics Afield, though again, the tax issues will be handled by selected third parties I align with. To meet the goals each year, I will set up a special fundraisers at the blog linked above.See here.
In another blog entry, Holding said anybody who makes a tax deductible donation will receive a receipt for this from the third party organization he works with:
All donations are tax-deductible, though as I noted in my ministry manifesto, I will now be working through third party organizations rather than one of my own. You will receive a receipt from that third party organization I am working with.
See here, it's the second-to-last paragraph.
Since Mr. Holding, even on his website and blogs announcing this shit, didn't disclose the name of this third-party organization he is working with, I decided to donate one dollar, in the hopes that I would get a receipt from this third-party and therefore obtain enough information to contact them and inform them about how Mr. Holding's past and current desire to engage in slander utterly disqualifies him from any teaching position in any Christian turch.
Well...tThe most fearsome spiritual warrior in God's army, James Patrick Holding, issued me a refund very quickly, and I still haven't gotten a receipt that identifies any third-party organization that Holding is working with. Here's the emailed refund receipt:
service@paypal.com <service@paypal.com>You'll notice who paid this refund: "Apologetics Afield". Not the "third-party".
Wed, Dec 26, 5:56 PM (2 days ago)
Hello, Christian Doscher
Apologetics Afield refunded $1.00 USD from your purchase on December 26, 2018.
The money was refunded to your VISA x-0888. It may take a few days to appear on your statement.
Your refund summary
Transaction ID: 5LG45575Y4622714K
December 26, 2018 17:55:00 PST
Total purchase amount $1.00 USD
Amount refunded $1.00 USD
Refund paid by
Apologetics Afield
Refund paid to
Christian Doscher
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
Refund details
Refund to VISA x-0888
$1.00 USD
PayPal
So unless some fool wishes to trifle that maybe there's another third party out there who has the same exact name as Holding's Apologetics Afield corporation, it's pretty clear that it is Holding himself who paid the refund.
In other words, Mr. Holding was aware that I would find out the identity of the third party organization he works with, if he kept that dollar. Therefore, Mr. Holding's refund is reasonably interpreted to signify that he didn't want me to know which third party organization he works with.
Gee...why would Mr. Holding fear my knowing something like that? Could it be that he has, once again, successfully hoodwinked this third party, and he hasn't given them what I would give them...the level of detail regarding his many sins of slander that utterly disqualify him from teaching ministry?
Holding will, of course, boast that this is not the reason, but then let him supply me the name, website, email address and physical address of the third-party organization he works with, then we can confirm that his dogshit excuse is actually serious. Since that won't be happening, at least not until I force to make such disclosure through the legal process, then no, Holding's denial isn't serious, its motivated by nothing but a narcissistic pathological need to constantly barge ahead and look good regardless of how much evidence there is that he is not good.
Unfortunately for Holding, all he is doing is increasing legal costs for himself.
You see, this was my attempt to learn, in cheap fashion, the identity of other people Holding is likely to have communicated with regarding myself or regarding the the two prior libel lawsuits I filed against him. And that's something that is obviously relevant to my planned future libel lawsuit against him.
Since he doesn't wish to do this the easy way, we'll do it the hard way, and I'll be asking him, in the discovery phase of the next lawsuit I file against him, to identity that third party organization. After all, I've made enough noise on the internet about him that it is at least reasonably likely that they googled his name, they found my documentation of his many sins of slander, and like any good Christian church, were concerned and thus can be plausibly presumed to have had discussions with Holding that involved the subject of myself and my two prior lawsuits against him.
And if Holding stupidly tries to tell the jury all I wanted to do in this was defame him to this third-party organization, I will confront him with the reason for this (i.e., I will confront him with my personal motivation for wishing to get in contact with this Holding's third-party ministry partner...it is because
a) they are Christians who believe the bible is the word of God.
b) the bible makes abundantly clear that foul jesting, abusive speech and slander are sin,
c) the bible makes abundantly clear that any "brother" who engages in "reviling" or the like is to be shunned,
d) the good people of this third-party church deserve to know ALL of the gory details about Holding's past and present slanders,
e) lest they pretend that I falsely accuse Holding, they also deserve to know why it is that my past and future lawsuits against him were and will be legally and factually justified in full, that the courts who dismissed the last two lawsuits were in error to do so, and therefore, I am accusing Holding of disobeying Romans 13 by disobeying the secular civil laws, here, the laws asserting that libel is a civil injustice that is actionable for damages in court.
f) thus leaving this third party wondering what to believe, the simple evidence confirming all of this, or Holding's trifling excuses in his effort to "explain" everything away.
I sincerely believe that Mr. Holding's ceaseless slanders and foul jesting render him disqualified, under biblical criteria, from the office of Christian teacher. If Holding is going to place my personal motives at issue, then I'll be testifying as to what exactly they were.
That's the fucked up situation you put yourself in when you
a) go around constantly slandering others, yet
b) you also want other Christian churches to think that you are free from the sin of slander
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Cold Case Christianity: J. Warner Wallace's proof-texting for messianic prophecy
Worldly companies would be less successful if Christians stopped being such shameless consumerists.As Christmas gift exchanges approach, the gift of Jesus is easily obscured.
Dream on. I refute your attempts to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of any OT prophecy. The problem is far more complex than your simple-minded proof-texting would indicate.But gifted prophets predicted the birth of the Messiah, and these prophesies, like other Old Testament prophecies, testify to the Divine nature of the Bible.
Then you must think Jesus was a drunkard, because drunkenness is one description of the Genesis 49 future Shiloh ruler:The New Testament contains two different types of prophetic declarations: the prophecies uttered by Jesus and the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. Old Testament prophets declared the coming of a Savior (a Messiah who would save the Jewish people and the entire world from their sin). Here is a brief summary of the prophecies predicting the gift of Jesus:The Messiah Would Come from the Tribe of JudahJacob made this prophetic prediction around 1400 BC.Genesis 49:10The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.Christians believe Jesus will establish an everlasting kingdom in the future. His ancestry is traced back to Jacob’s son, Judah, in Luke 3:23-34 and in Matthew 1:1-16.
8 "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father's sons shall bow down to you.
9 "Judah is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him up?
10 "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
11 "He ties his foal to the vine, And his donkey's colt to the choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, And his robes in the blood of grapes.
12 "His eyes are dull from wine, And his teeth white from milk.
13 "Zebulun will dwell at the seashore; And he shall be a haven for ships, And his flank shall be toward Sidon. (Gen. 49:8-13 NAU)
Evangelical Christian scholar G. J. Wenham on v. 12:
12 “His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk” seems to be a reference to the leader’s beauty (cf. 1 Sam 9:2; 16:12; cf. LXX, Vg, S, Caquot [Sem. 26 (1976) 5–32]), but it could be another reference to the abundance of wine and milk under the coming king. In this case, it would be preferable to translate the lines “His eyes are dark with wine and his teeth white with milk.” Canaan is often described as “flowing with milk and honey” (e.g., Exod 3:8, 17; Num 13:27; Deut 6:3). In an Arabic proverb, being “red with wine” is metaphorical for being very rich. And Isa 7:21–23 reflects on the erstwhile abundance of milk and vineyards. But the suggestion that his eyes will be “dark with wine” might suggest drunkenness as in Prov 23:29, which prompts the Targums to take the eyes and teeth as metaphors for the mountains and valleys of Palestine (e.g., Tg. Onq.).Jesus' beauty? Nope, Christians think other OT predictions of Jesus say he was ugly:
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. (Isa. 53:2 NAU)The abundance of wine and milk under the coming king?
Whatever the metaphor might mean, it isn't explicit enough to intellectually obligate non-Christians to admit fulfillment in the 1st century. Jesus probably did a lot of good, but his own family sure didn't think he was increasing the metaphorical wine and milk (Mark 3:21, they thought he was crazy and tried to put a stop to his public ministry, the interpretation that most conservative Christian inerrantist scholars adopt).
I think the more likely interpretation of Genesis 49:10 is that the speaker in Genesis 49 meant that Judah in the future will get literally drunk very often and enjoy luxury and ease due to being wealthy, traits that fit the context well enough, but traits Jesus did not have (see Luke 9:58, Jesus was apparently homeless).
That Genesis 49:10 is at best an ambiguity that fights against attempts to understand it with certainty, is clear from the admissions of such a bastion of fundamentalism as Keil and Delitzsch:
Some of the Rabbins supposed our Shiloh to refer to the city. This opinion has met with the approval of most of the expositors, from Teller and Eichhorn to Tuch, who regard the blessing as a vaticinium ex eventu, and deny not only its prophetic character, but for the most part its genuineness. Delitzsch has also decided in its favour, because Shiloh or Shilo is the name of a town in every other passage of the Old Testament; and in 1 Sam. 4:12, where the name is written as an accusative of direction, the words are written exactly as they are here.
Furthermore, the originally intended audience of Genesis 49 would likely have understood "scepter" literally, that is, if it refers to a future ruler, it will be one who literally rules with a literal sceptor the way ancient Judean kings literally did. Jesus did not rule with a literal sceptor, and since other arguments prove that Jesus stayed dead consistently after the crucifixion, Genesis 49:10 is not talking about what Jesus will be like at his second coming. And preterists are forced to admit that if Jesus made his second coming in the 1st century, then his ruling with a "sceptor" can only be limited to a typological fulfillment of this "prophecy".
Nothing deflates the power of messianic prophecy quite like "typology". You may as well say Nahum 2:4 was a prediction of speeding cars with headlights on. Nobody would give a fuck. Next?
The Messiah Will Appear After the Jews Return to IsraelJeremiah uttered this prophecy between 626 BC and 586 BC. It was first fulfilled in Jesus’ earthly ministry and will be fulfilled again in the end times.
Thank you for clarifying that you have no interest in using messianic prophecy to convince skeptics, you are only doing this to help those who already embrace the Christian faith, to believe that it has some intellectual basis. Clearly the easier of the two possible goals.
First, the "gathering" of the "flock" would have been understood by Jeremiah's originally intended audience as literal, given that Jeremiah spoke while he and Israel were living under the Babylonian captivity. So if this is about Jesus, then it is saying Jesus' coming will be attended by a literal gathering of God's flock, likely back to Israel. That obviously didn't happen in the 1st century, and we can only guess at how many centuries need to pass without fulfillment, before you will agree that your "partial fulfillment" bullshit is nothing but desperate hot air.Jeremiah 23:3-6‘I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,’ declares the LORD. ‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.”
Second, "they will no longer be afraid or terrified" would also be taken by the originally intended audience as signifying a literal gathering of the people upon the ending of the captivity. Yet such comforting didn't happen when Jesus came the first time, and hasn't happened for 2,000 years. You lose.
Third, the prophecy says "in his days Judah will be saved" and "saved" in its original context would have meant release from captivity, it would not have meant "accept Jesus into your heart and become born again".
Curiously, evangelical Christian scholar P.C. Craigie's comments say nothing about whether this passage is a prediction of Jesus:
It is also curious that Craigie understands this prophecy to be saying the coming of the predicted ruler will cause the liberation of the people, in the sense that they will dwell securely in their own land. Jesus did precisely nothing during his lifetime to free Israel from foreign occupation, and Israel hasn't dwelt securely in any land for 2,000 years, and any exceptions were temporary.Yahweh is about to raise up a new king, either a rightful (=legitimate) descendant of David, or a righteous one. This king will bring the covenant conditions to the people: righteousness and justice. Liberation will come and the people will dwell securely in their own land. This king will be named “Yahweh is our righteousness.”
Feel free to tell yourself that Jesus will fulfill the liberation prediction at his second-coming, but be sure you google "preterism" first. Many Christians believe Jesus' second-coming occurred in the 1st century...a serious problem since, regardless, the Jews were in dispersion for centuries afterward and have never "dwelt securely" in any landd since. Unless you think ceaseless wars and civil unrest for 2,000 years constitutes "dwelling securely"?
That's quite sufficient to show that the passage is nowhere near so clear as to intellectually compel an objective person to see Jesus in it. We have no doubts why many Christian scholars and apologists appeal to "partial fulfillment". They need a nice way to say "Jesus didn't correctly fulfill this prediction".
Wallace continues:
What you aren't telling the reader is that Matthew changed the wording to make it sound more like Jesus than it originally did. Compare:The Messiah Would Be Born in BethlehemThe prophet Micah predicted this between 750 BC and 686 BC.Micah 5:2‘But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.’To be fair, there is disagreement regarding the translation of Micah 5:2. Some say the reference to ‘Bethlehem’ is simply a reference to the bloodline of King David. Other people say it is a reference to the town of Bethlehem. Jesus meets both criteria; He is a descendant of King David and He was born in Bethlehem.
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Micah 5
|
Matthew 2
|
|
1 "Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of
troops; They have laid siege against us; With a rod they will smite the judge
of Israel
on the cheek.
2 "But as for
you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the
clans of Judah,
From you
One will go forth
for Me
to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity."
3 Therefore He will
give them up until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. Then
the remainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel.
|
4 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of
the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
5 They said to him,
"In Bethlehem of Judea;
for this is what has been written by the prophet:
6 'AND YOU, BETHLEHEM,
LAND
OF JUDAH,
ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE
LEADERS OF JUDAH;
FOR OUT OF YOU
SHALL COME FORTH
A RULER
WHO WILL SHEPHERD
MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.'"
7 Then Herod
secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time the star
appeared.
|
Micah merely says "to be a ruler in Israel", Matthew changes this in a way that conveniently makes the prophecy sound more Christian: "a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel".
Christian scholars agree that Matthew changed some of the wording:
Gleason Archer, the doomed king of bible inerrancy, surprisingly admits that Matthew changed the wording:
This is one of the most familiar pericopes in Micah for Christians. Matthew quoted 5:1 in reference to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem (Matt 2:6). However, the OT text is slightly altered in Matthew’s account. Instead of saying, “little to be among the clans of Judah,” Matthew says, “by no means least among the rulers of Judah.” Also Matthew omits “Ephrathah,” and adds, “my people” Judah.
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Commentary
| ||
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Micah 5:1(2); MT 5:1a hd'Why> ypel.a;B.
tAyh.li ry[ic' ht'r'p.a, ~x,l,-tybe hT'a;w>; LXX kai. su,, bhqle,em oi=koj tou/
Efraqa, ovligosto.j
(very small) ei=
tou/ ei=nai evn cilia,sin Iouda. MT laer'f.yIB. lveAm
tAyh.li aceyE yli ^M.mi; LXX evk sou/ moi
evxeleu,setai tou/ ei=nai eivj a;rconta (“from thee shall one come forth
for/to me in order to become a ruler”). MT ~l'A[ ymeymi ~d,Q,mi wyt'ac'AmW; LXX kai. ai` e;xodoi auvtou/ avpV avrch/j evx h`merw/n aivw/noj. The LXX furnishes a very accurate rendering of the MT. But Mt 2:6 has an entirely independent rendering that provides some challenging deviations: (1) NT kai. su. Bhqle,em, gh/ Iou,da (instead of ht'r'p.a,). Perhaps Ephrathah was taken as an identifier as to which of the two Bethlehems was to be the Messiah's birthplace, whether that of Zebulon to the north (Josh 19:15) up near Nazareth, or the one to the south of Jerusalem. Therefore Matthew, or the advisors of King Herod, saw fit to identify it as Judah, bringing out the implication of Ephrathah, which was the name of the region in which the town was located; (2) NT ouvdamw/j evlaci,sth ei= evn toi/j h`gemo,sin; the LXX states that Bethlehem was very small to be among the 1000-family (or 1000 militiamen) towns of Judah. But Matthew understands from the next clause that if the messianic ruler himself is to come from Bethlehem, then it is—regardless of its size—to be regarded as a town of outstanding importance and glory. So he uses the negative to bring out the implication that it is after all a very important town within the tribe of Judah, despite the modest size of its population. The next change was in the term h`gemo,nej, “rulers,” instead of ~ypil'a] “thousands,” referring to a community that could number 1000 families or even 1000 men at arms. (From this it was but a step to refer to the commander of these troops as a @l,a, varo (prince of 1000), or @l,a, for short, just as the Roman centurio was derived from centurium, or a company of 100 soldiers). But to the Greek reader it may have been more helpful to use a less confusing term than cilia,dej, i.e., h`gemw,n as the commander of 1000 soldiers. While it is true that in the first century h;geww,n was often used of a procurator like Pontius Pilate, it could also refer to the commander of a cohort, for which a more technical equivalent would be cilia,rcwn. But since the term h`genw,n several times is used in the LXX for the Hebrew @WLa; (Gen 36:15; Ex 15:1; 1 Chron 1:50; Psalm 54:14), some have suggested that Matthew may have read yPl.a; as ypeWLa; or ypeLua;. This is certainly a good possibility, for it would involve no consonantal change of the received consonantal text. (E) |
Archer and Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament
(© 1983 Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, BibleWorks edition © 2005)
(© 1983 Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, BibleWorks edition © 2005)
Sorry folks, but if you have to change the prophecy's wording to make it fit the "facts", you probably shouldn't be screaming your head off about the "amazing accuracy" of biblical prophecy. Or you should at least cease doing so when you leave church and go back out into the real world where truth actually matters.
Wallace continues:
But in the original context, Isaiah 40 wasn't talking about John the Baptist, for several reasons:The Messiah Would Be Preceded By a MessengerIsaiah predicted there would be a messenger who would precede the Messiah and proclaim His coming. Isaiah made the prophecy between 701 BC and 681 BC.Isaiah 40:3A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the LORD ; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”Christians believe this passage foreshadowed the life of John the Baptist who played an important role in preparing the groundwork for the ministry of Jesus Christ.
1 "Comfort, O comfort My people," says your God.First, "speak kindly" (v. 1) interprets "a voice is calling" (v. 2) and the two verses make clear this is Isaiah himself addressing Israel's situation there during his lifetime in 700 b.c.
2 "Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the LORD'S hand Double for all her sins."
3 A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.
4 "Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley;
5 Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
6 A voice says, "Call out." Then he answered, "What shall I call out?" All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. (Isa. 40:1-8 NAU)
Second, Isaiah is obviously talking to his contemporaries and telling THEM to clear the way for the Lord.
Curiously, evangelical Christian scholar J. D. W. Watts doesn't even mention future fulfillment or John the Baptist when commenting on the critical verse 3, nor does he mention John the Baptist anywhere in his entire commentary on Isaiah:
Isaiah 40:3 A solo voice calls for monstrous preparation, including a highway. One might expect that this would be for pilgrims returning to Jerusalem or for those who would resettle the land. But the highway does not come to Jerusalem from the northeast or from the north (i.e., from Babylon) or even from the south (i.e., from Egypt), where the Diaspora is located. The wilderness spoken of here is in the southeast, the Arabah. And the one to travel on it is Yahweh, our God. Ezekiel had pictured Yahweh abandoning the city (Ezek 9–11). Now he is returning, using the way that was familiar from Temple traditions of Yahweh coming from Sinai or from Edom (cf. chaps. 34 and 63:1–6) through the Arabah south of the Dead Sea to approach Jerusalem from the east (cf. Comment on 10:27–32). The heart of the announcement, the reason for the messages of good news, is that Yahweh is returning to take up residence in Jerusalem again. This calls for royal preparations.
You lose.
I think Wallace is being dishonest here, for while Luke 19 surely talks about Jesus riding on a donkey, Wallace surely knew that Matthew's version of the story is the one that a) contains a direct quote of this "prophecy" and b) Matthew's version is the one that has convinced many scholars that Matthew did not understand hendiatys, and misunderstood a parallel expression of one donkey, to signify two. Compare:The Messiah Would Enter Jerusalem While Riding on a DonkeyZechariah made this unusual prediction between 520 BC and 518 BC.Zechariah 9:9Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.As recorded in Luke 19:35-37, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and presented Himself as the Messiah, the King.
|
Zechariah 9
|
Matthew 21
|
|
7 And I will remove their blood from their mouth And their
detestable things from between their teeth. Then they also will be a remnant
for our God, And be like a clan in Judah, And Ekron like a Jebusite.
8 But I will camp
around My house because of an army, Because of him who passes by and returns;
And no oppressor will pass over them anymore, For now I have seen with My
eyes.
9 Rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off
the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut
off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from
sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.
|
1 When they had approached Jerusalem
and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives,
then Jesus sent two disciples,
2 saying to them,
"Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a
donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me.
3 "If anyone
says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and
immediately he will send them."
4 This took place
to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 "SAY TO THE
DAUGHTER OF ZION,
'BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU,
GENTLE,
AND MOUNTED ON A DONKEY,
EVEN ON
A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN.'"
6 The disciples
went and did just as Jesus had instructed them,
7 and brought the
donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats.
(Matt. 21:1-7 NAU)
|
First, Matthew 21:3 has Jesus telling others that he has need of "them" (i.e., BOTH the donkey and her colt). Well wait a minute...Zech. 9:9 wasn't talking about two animals. It was talking about one, a colt. The verse says "mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey". That's not two animals, but one, because of a Hebrew parallelism technique called hendiatys. Some examples:
Hebrews 11:13 The formulation ξένοι καὶ παρεπίδημοι, “strangers and sojourners,” is a hendiadys, the expression of an idea by two nouns joined by the conjunction “and.” It is equivalent to “sojourning strangers.”
“Made well and live” (σωθῇ καὶ ζήσῃ) could refer to two distinct ideas (Taylor, 288). Yet since these two verbs render the Aramaic חיה, ḥayâh, some have taken them to be a hendiadys, two expressions for the same thing (Black, Approach, 71, n. 1; Klostermann, 51).Luke 2:4 “house and family,” is probably a hendiadys.
Furthermore, under Markan priority, Matthew probably got this story from Mark 11 which says:
1 As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples,In other words, Matthew's likely source were these Markan admissions about a single colt, nothing expressed or implied about a second animal.
2 and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.
3 "If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' you say, 'The Lord has need of it'; and immediately he will send it back here."
4 They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it.
5 Some of the bystanders were saying to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"
6 They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission.
7 They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it.
8 And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.
9 Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: "Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!"
11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. (Mk. 11:1-11 NAU)
Why then does Mark specify that "the Lord has need of IT" and Matthew specifies "the Lord has need of THEM"? Most likely because the Matthean author of this part of Matthew mistakenly took Zechariah 9:9 literally, and was ignorant that the OT expression was describing one animal in two ways. Otherwise, why would Matthew feel compelled to modify the singular to the plural, especially if he thought his Markan source was inerrant?
Sorry, but at best this "prophecy" could have been fulfilled improperly by any messianic pretender by simply obtaining a colt and riding it into Jerusalem. You lose. Next?
You need to look at the context first, that's more objective than simply asking how some important RabbisThe Messiah Would Suffer and Be RejectedIsaiah made this prediction as well, between 701 BC and 681 BC.Isaiah 53:3He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.Some scholars claim Isaiah was referring to Israel as a nation in this passage rather than the Messiah. But, many important, historic Rabbis believed this passage was indeed about the Messiah.
understood it.
Rabbi Moshe Alshekh, one of the great seventeenth-century expositors from Safed, Israel, said ‘Our Rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view.”
Ok, since you don't go to the context, I will. The suffering servant in Isaiah is spoken of in past tense terms which is a rather confused way of predicting the future (!?). Isaiah 53:7 says the servant didn't open his mouth while his executors were slaughtering him, but Jesus obviously does plenty of talking during his execution, John 19:11, Luke 23:28, 34, 43, 46. Also the Hebrew word for death in Isaiah 53:9 is a plural, so in your quest to show this stuff literally applies to Jesus, be sure you cite the evidence showing that he died several times.
Finally, again curiously, a Christian scholar doesn't even mention Jesus as a possible fulfillment of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, which would hardly be the case if Jesus being the fulfillment had been the least bit "clear":
This commentary will show that “the sufferer passages” are distinct from “the servant passages” sufferer and the servant are not the same person and that the in the Vision. Israel and the Persian emperor (Cyrus or Darius) are called “the anointed” or “the servant of Yahweh” (See Excursus: Identifying the “Servant of Yahweh”). But the sufferer in 50:4–9 and the dead sufferer in chap. 53 is more likely to be a leader in Jerusalem (perhaps Zerubbabel) who has been executed before the arrival of authorities sent by Darius.
later on he specifies:
And later:53:2 He grew up like a plant before him. Pronouns without antecedents appear throughout these verses. The waw consecutive ties this verse closely to v 1. This interpretation understands most of the third person masculine pronouns to refer the “the servant” of 52:13 (Darius). The second pronoun may refer to his patron Cambyses. That is, Darius grew up in the court of Cambyses as an insignificant and unpromising person. A vine from dry ground is figurative language for one of parentage not in line for succession to the throne. No form, no beauty, no attraction imply that Darius was a most unlikely candidate to gain support for his seizure of the throne. We: the speakers are the many, the crowd, of 52:14. They are talking among themselves, not addressing the emperor.
53:11 The heavenly perspective is accented by Yahweh’s words. The travail of his soul refers to the suffering and death of Zerubbabel. He will see; he will be satisfied. This speaks of Darius. He has a way out of his dilemma if he treats Zerubbabel’s death as atonement for the charge of rebellion. By knowing about him (Zerubbabel), he (Darius) can justify. The death of Zerubbabel provides Darius with a legal way to resolve the issue. My servant refers to Darius, who by this act proves his legitimacy as Yahweh’s servant. He vindicates Jerusalem and its people against the charges brought by the governor and neighboring peoples. He forgives their wrongs. This is presented as Yahweh’s realistic and practical solution to the problem posed in 52:14–15.Of course, the reader may suggest J.D.W. Watts perhaps wasn't a Christian when he wrote this commentary. Wrong: From logos.com:
John D.W. Watts, formerly Professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky and Old Testament editor of the Word Biblical Commentary, well known for his scholarly contributions on the prophetic books.See here.
So if even Christian scholars say next to nothing about Jesus' relationship to Isaiah 53, you can hardly consider the non-Christian to be intellectually obligated to view Jesus as the fulfillment of that "prediction".
And responsible Christian scholars tell us the original OT passage wasn't talking about the future:The Messiah Would Be Betrayed for 30 Pieces of SilverZechariah predicted the betrayal of Jesus when he wrote this prophecy between 520 BC and 518 BC.Zechariah 11:12-13I told them, ‘If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.’ So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’–the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter.As recorded in Matthew 26:15, Judas was paid 30 silver coins for his betrayal of Jesus. Judas later tossed the money into the Temple (the house of the Lord) and the money was used to buy a potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.
Fuhr and Yates consider this prophecy fulfillment to be typological, not literal prediction:Although NT writers connect this passage about the thirty pieces of silver paid to the prophet for his unappreciated service as a shepherd to his people to the money Judas received for betraying Jesus, the original passage makes no reference to a future Messiah. S. R. Driver says that the evangelist (Matthew) makes the connection because he “follows the exegetical methods current among the Jews of his time” (cf. Matt 2:15, 18; Driver 259).Although no strict messianic view should be seen in the original passage, the quality of leadership is its central theme.
see here.
The publisher acknowledges these scholars are Christians with a Christian purpose:
Old Testament scholars Richard Alan Fuhr, Jr. and Gary E. Yates believe that the message of the twelve Minor Prophets is relevant for the church today, and they re-introduce these important books of the Bible to contemporary Christians. (source)Wallace continues:
This is a non-starter. Isaiah doesn't say the servant refused to protest the accusations, Isaiah says the sufferer was silent before his accusers the way a lamb is silent before the shearer, but the NT has Jesus saying much to his accusers. Compare:The Messiah Would Be Silent Before His AccusersIsaiah predicted this between 701 BC and 681 BC.Isaiah 53:7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.In the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, Isaiah wrote about a “servant of God”. As recorded in Matthew 27:12-14, Jesus was falsely accused but remained silent and did not protest the accusations. Jesus was crucified by the Romans a short time later.
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Isaiah 53
|
John 18
|
|
7 He was oppressed
and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He
did not open His mouth.
|
33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and
summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?"
34 Jesus answered,
"Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you
about Me?"
35 Pilate answered,
"I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered
You to me; what have You done?"
36 Jesus
answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this
world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over
to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm."
37 Therefore Pilate
said to Him, "So You are a king?"
Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king.
For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to
testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
|
I think this is the part where mouthy apologists suddenly discover who wise Christian scholar Craig Evans was in saying that Jesus probably didn't say most of the things the gospel of John puts in his mouth. See here.
First, the fact that Jesus quoted Psalm 22 shows his own effort to "fulfill" that passage, which means there is no intellectually forceful argument that divine inspiration is the only way this fulfillment could have happened.The Messiah Would Suffer at the CrucifixionThe Psalmist, King David wrote Psalm 22 and repeatedly predicted the events on the cross that would happen centuries later. Here are a few examples:Psalm 22:1My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?Psalm 22:7All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:Psalm 22:8‘He trusts in the LORD ; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.’Psalm 22:16Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.Psalm 22:17I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.Psalm 22:18They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.Why did Jesus, while dying on the cross, say ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Those words are actually the first line of Psalm 22, which according to Jewish tradition was written by King David about 1,000 years before Jesus was crucified. There are many parallels between the details in Psalm 22 and the manner in which Jesus died.
Second, Psalm 22:16's "pierce my hands and feet", in context, is referring to the Psalmist's metaphorical complaint that his enemies are chewing him up the way an animal would piece your hands and feet by biting them.
16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.Third, responsible Christian scholars translate 22:16 in a way that gets rid of the "pieced" crap that Christians need to link it up Jesus' crucifixion:
17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;
18 They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But You, O LORD, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion's mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me. (Ps. 22:16-21 NAU)
Craigie also makes the "typological" interpretation the most likely when he says the original intent of the Psalm wasn't messianic:For dogs have surrounded me;b 17.b. MT’s כָּאֲרִי (“like a lion”) presents numerous problems and can scarcely be correct. One must suppose that incorrect vocalization of the consonantal text occurred, perhaps through association with a marginal gloss at v 14; see note a at v 14 and L. C. Allen, “Cuckoos in the Textual Nest,” JTS 22 (1971) 148–50. It is probably best to read a consonantal text כארו or כרו; see the massive discussion of the manuscript evidence in De-Rossi, IV, 14–20. G’s translation, “they pierced my hands and feet” (ὤρυξαν), may perhaps presuppose a verb כרה, “to dig,” or כור (II), “to pierce, bore” (though the latter verb is dubious). Some scholars have supposed a verb אָרָה (“to pluck, pick clean”), prefixed by כְּ; for different approaches to this solution of the problem, see Dahood, “The Verb ĀRĀH, ‘pick clean,’” VT 24 (1974) 370–71, and Tournay, VT 23 (1973) 111–12. Still another solution is the proposal of a verb כרה (V), “to be shrunken, shriveled” (on the basis of Akk. and Syriac), as proposed by Roberts, VT 23 (1973) 247–52. The starting point for the translation which is adopted above is provided by E. J. Kissane (The Book of Psalms, 97–101). He proposes an original text כלו, changed to כרו (noting the occasional interchange of ל and ר), and translates “consumed.” This is basically the position adopted above; on the consonantal interchange, see A. Fitzgerald, “The Interchange of L, N and R in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 97 (1978) 481–88. Thus the verb is a form of כלה (3 plur. perf.); on the nuance “to be exhausted,” for this verb, see BDB, 477.
Though the psalm is not messianic in its original sense or setting (though some scholars would interpret vv 28–32 as a messianic relecture: see MartinAchard, art. cit.), it may be interpreted from a NT perspective as a messianic psalm par excellence.Wallace continues:
NT New Testament
Maybe so. But since he was buried in a rich man's tomb, the rich man could also have easily bribed the guards to simply say they found the tomb empty upon arrival...and that particular story would not have subjected them to any punishment, whereas the bribery story Matthew gives (i.e., they were bribed to say they were asleep when the disciples stole the body) not only would subject the guards to severe punishment, but would not make sense anyway, they'd obviously anticipate their boss asking "how could you know who the grave robbers were, if it happened while you were asleep?" In this case, the historicity of the burial account opens historiographical doors the apologists don't want to open, doors that are more plausible than the bullshit story Matthew gives. So yes, the disciples stole the body before the guards arrived (if Joe can move a stone in front of the tomb, other men can just as easily move it aside).The Messiah Would Be Buried in a Rich Man’s TombIn yet another prophecy of Isaiah, made between 701 BC and 681 BC, the prophet predicted the burial of the Messiah.Isaiah 53:9He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.Seven hundred years after this was written, Jesus was killed with two criminals and buried in a tomb owned by a wealthy man. Jesus was resurrected three days later and eventually ascended into Heaven.
It would seem that skeptics are winning the messianic prophecy debate. Christian Research Institute ('CRI') has always stood for standard Protestant orthodoxy and apologetics, but in one of its articles (attributed to Hank Hanegraaff but more than likely ghost-written for him mostly by actual bible scholars, as was the case with his best-selling books), it specifically denies that Isaiah 7:14 was a literal prediction of Jesus' birth, it rather admits the fulfillment in Jesus is "typological":
As with double-fulfillment, single-fulfillment does violence to the biblical text. Indeed, Isaiah 7:14 does not constitute a direct prediction about the Messiah at all. Though Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin, Isaiah did not predict the virgin birth of Jesus. As we will now see, when Matthew says the virgin birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, he speaks of typological fulfillment, not predictive fulfillment.See here.
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