Monday, December 3, 2018

Some hard truths about James Patrick Holding and his misleading videos about the libel lawsuit

This is my reply to a video by James Patrick Holding entitled


First, Holding is a hypocrite and liar, pure and simple.   In one of his videos that was obviously directed at nobody else but me, “Screwy Moments inScriptural Interpretation 15- Romans 7 and Sin”, starting at time-code 2:00, he says that If I have a problem with anything in his videos, I should deal with him, and “no one else”.

At time code 2:40, he taunts me saying that if I deal with my problem with his videos in any way other than with him personally, then I’d be showing I was too frightened to man up and deal with him “one-on-one”.  Ok, I recently sent a settlement offer to Holding by email and other methods to make sure he got it.  See here.

He never replied “one on one”.  He never “manned up”.  All he did was post more defamatory videos filled with misleading half-truths.

Since he qualified “one on one” with “no one else”, it’s pretty clear that he was asking me to avoid telling anybody else about my problems with his videos, and to simply contact him by direct correspondence.  And Holding is a hypocrite and a liar because his response to my most recent settlement offer was not direct private correspondence, but by cartoon youtube video obviously intended more to entertain his friends and the world than to seriously interact with myself. Only in Holding’s retarded mind does “upload a video for my friends to laugh at” constitute his engaging in "manning up", communicating “one on one” and involving “no one else”.


Like I said, Holding is a hypocrite and liar.  He does not expect from himself what he expects from others.  What the fuck else would a reasonable person take “one on one” to mean, if not direct reply?


Second, some questions for Holding, and yes, I'll be dealing with his dogshit legal arguments later:

1.      In some of your third-party emails from 2015 which I forced you to disclose in the State litigation, you complained, with seriousness, that you thought I was sufficiently dangerously mentally ill to attempt to murder you.  From a private message you sent to somebody on Tweb:
Hi...I see you're on TWeb. So I'll drop you a note requesting prayer before I ; sign off.
I had a very troubling late afternoon and evening. "Bud" is getting more and more obsessed with getting me out there. He wrote today that he would get me before a jury if it was "the last thing he did on earth." Ordinarily that may not mean much, but because he is mentally ill, and his disorder is the type that makes people prone to suicide or violence, I wondered if he wanted to kill himself. Then I began to think that his obsession to get to me in person, which he has had since 2008, was because he wanted to kill ME.
I was concerned enough to write some panicked emails to some people in Washington, asking if there was some sort of order or something I could ask for to keep me from having to ever be in the same room with him.
Maybe it was irrational. But I get irrational whenever I feel like something will happen that threatens the people I love.
 Similarly, in an email to Casey Luskin, you allege that I’d try to kill you in a courtroom, therefore, you wouldn’t appear in the courtroom with me unless I was sedated and under guard:
From: J. P. Holding <jphold@att.net
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: Reason for my call
Casey,
I just wrote Seth a half hour or so ago. This is getting to be scary. This guy just wrote me this afternoon saying that he'd get me in front of a jury if it was the last thing he ever did "on earth". I'd take that as just hyperbole except he IS mentally ill -- borderline personality disorder -- and I worked with prison inmates who had that, and know what they can do when they get that obsessed. He also had a restraining order put on him 20 years ago by his wife, over a domestic violence incident.


If I didn't live 3000 miles away I'd be buying a gun right now. He's had this obsession to get me in some sort of live debate situation for years now. I didn't think much of it until I found out he was mentally ill a few weeks ago. Now it's getting scary. I think part of it is that he's been trying to get people in the apologetics field to disassociate with me for years, by writing them long ranting emails about how evil I am, but all they do is ignore him.


There's no way I'm getting in the same room with this guy unless he's sedated and under guard.

Similarly, in an email to Seth Cooper, you specifically alleged that I’d try to kill you with my bare hands:
From: J. P. Holding <jphold@att.net
Sent: " Tuesday, October 06, 2015 3:17 PM
Subject: I think this guy wants to kill me!
 


Seth, I really need some input on this. If he weren't 3000 miles away I'd go buy a gun right now to protect myself and my loved ones. 


I'm serious. This is getting scary. He has borderline personality disorder, and I've worked in a prison with a mental health unit full of guys like this. He also had a restraining order put on him 20 years ago by his thenwife, over a domestic violence issue. For years now he's had this "thing" about getting me in front of my church, or in a live debate, or in some way confronting me in person. I didn't think much of it before, now it's starting to take on a darker light. "The last thing I ever do on earth"???? There's no way I can be in the same room with this guy. He'll try to strangle me with his bare hands!


 What do I need to do? Motion for protection order? Declaration to the court expressing my concerns?
Question:  Do you know of anybody else in the world, besides yourself, who do as much as you do to try and enrage their enemy while being seriously fearful that the enemy intends on murdering them?  If your answer is “yes”, provide their names and any websites they either own or post at.  If your answer is “no”, could a person reasonably deduce from the fact that you are the only person in the world who does this shit, that you are irrational? 

What else do you do in your spare time, Holding.  Walk though East Los Angeles shouting angry racial slurs?

2.      Could you really blame a person who got the impression from your criticisms of me, that you feed off of negativity and get a “thrill” out of smearing other people’s reputations?  Some Christians might say that even if your views are basically correct, the extreme obsession you have toward smearing me goes far beyond biblically justified limits.

3.      In the above-quoted Tweb message, you say
Maybe it was irrational. But I get irrational whenever I feel like something will happen that threatens the people I love

Could a person be reasonable to draw the conclusion that you tend to become irrational when your enemies criticize your beliefs?  Or, like Steve Hays, will you unconvincingly insist that this language of yours, which looks serious and genuine, was mere satire?  I can’t wait to hear the master of trifling sophistry “explain” this one.  What, maybe you meant “more smart than I already am” when you said “irrational”?  or maybe there's no law that says you aren't allowed to give a false impression to your own lawyer?

4.      Who do you think has more to lose when and if that third lawsuit gets filed?  The person who, in your own judgment, has no life or reputation to speak of in the first place….or the person who wants the Christian world to view him as an intellectual giant who has experienced significant spiritual maturing in his 20 years of internet apologetics?

5.      Besides myself, do you negatively criticize any other persons whom you believe have such serious mental disabilities that they are likely to attempt to murder you?  Or is it only Christian Doscher who causes you to violate common sense?

6.      Did any of the CRI employees that Hank fired in the last 20 years, ever accuse him of being mean-spirited and unfit to be the president of CRI, yes or no?  Don’t lie and pretend you don’t know.  You present yourself as a top researcher, you love controversy, you know CRI has been involved in controversy before, so its highly unlikely that you know nothing about the scandal in which many CRI employees were fired or quit because Hank was such an asshole.  I ask because you seem to think it significant that CRI ignored my letter of concern about you and did nothing about it. If other CRI employees accused Hank of being a mean bastard and unfit for Christian leadership, then apparently, CRI’s ignoring my letter of concern does NOT automatically make you look better. There would exist the genuine possibility that the letter was ignored, not because CRI thought you innocent of the charges, but because CRI is as stupid as you, and falsely thinks that the way you slandered me violated nothing in the New Testament, which would apparently mean that CRI’s bible tells them nothing about slander, reviling, filthy talk, or jesting.   It would also mean that CRI and Hank disagree violently with Licona and Habermas on whether insulting one’s critic has biblical justification.

7.      You have always called me a moron and dumb ass because of my view that the bible prohibits Christians from insulting their critics.  That view is shared by Habermas, Licona, Rohrbaugh, Carson, Blomberg, and others.  Why don’t you publicly accuse these men of being morons and dumb asses for getting wrong the exact same biblical truth you condemn skeptics for getting 'wrong'?  Could it be that you actually do think them to be morons, but you refrain from saying so because you desire their public endorsement?

8.      Since you have been unable, since 1998, to answer my repeated requests that you provide the names of any legitimately credentialed Christian scholars who think the bible justifies today’s Christians to insult their critics, would it be reasonable to say that your unique application of the biblical data on riposte, and your interpretation of the bible passages most people think prohibit insulting other people, should be subject to scholarly criticism and discussion?  Years ago, I tried to give you a head start by citing to KJV Onlyist Peter Ruckman, Ph.d, but since you laughed this off, then apparently, you don’t think Ruckman’s support of your view is significant enough to justify citing it to answer my question.  If there are any Christian scholars who agree with your use of extreme riposte today, you don’t cite them in the article that is supposed to be your magnum opus on the subject, “The Christian and Harsh Language”.  Some might find this to be rather significant and revealing omission in light of your extraordinarily high view of your own research capabilities.

9. If you interpret the bible in a way for which you cannot find, or refuse to cite, any support from other Christian scholars, is there an increase in the probability that such interpretation would lead to cultic mentality?

10. Will you disclose the names of the churches you’ve attended in the last 6 months?  Or do I have to find them myself?
11.   How can you boast that nothing I ever reported to other people caused them concern about you?  All we have is your word.  A more objective proof for your contention would be specific statements from CRI, Sweetwater Baptist and others, specifying that they did nothing with my accusations.

12.   Since you can never be wrong on anything ever, especially on those “facts” that you feel you need to spread around the internet, what abusive epithets will you hurl at the Florida police detective who, after filing your criminal report against me, refused to take my own voluntary statement and promptly closed the investigation, no charges filed?  After all, anybody who decides your criminal charges against me were baseless, must surely be a "dumb ass moron", correct?   Or will you admit that in your self-professed tendency to become irrational, you might have wrongfully squawked to the police before you even had sufficient probable cause to think I committed those crimes?  Well how fucked up is THAT?  You go around filing criminal reports on your enemies based on little more than your unconfirmed hunches?  At least you are honest about one thing...yes, you get irrational when you are criticized.

13. How could you possibly excuse away your failure to contact Rohrbaugh concerning his belief that you pervert the NT, by characterizing such contact as amounting to involving him in your “personal problems”, when the issue is limited to scholarship?  He said you "pervert" the NT and ALL Context Group scholarship, and you think emailing him asking "in what ways do you believe I perverted the NT and Context Group scholarship" constitutes bothering him with your personal problems (!?) FUCK YOU.  the ONLY reason you didn't contact him the way any scholar would contact another upon such rebuke, was because you were genuinely fearful that he would confirm that I quoted him accurately, yes, he really did say that.  What’s funny is that under your own stupid definition of “personal problems”, most of what people think constitutes "scholarly stuff" in Christian scholarly journals is mere bothering each other with "personal problems".  As soon as scholar A contacts scholar B to resolve an accusation of taking something out of context, or whatever, this is “contacting them about my personal problems”.  Well fuck you, that’s not the case.


Now let's get to Holding's videos and the crap he thinks passes for honest presentation of the facts and legal argument.

The state court was wrong to impose Holding’s attorney-fees on me.


First, the Washington state law that allows the out-of-State Defendant, who prevails with a motion to dismiss, as Holding did, to have his attorney-fees imposed on the Plaintiff, requires that the Defendant had been served the summons and complaint in that case “personally” (i.e, by a human being). 




Immediately after a process server gave Holding summons and complaint on August 5, 2015, Holding began telling me and everybody else that the summons was missing from the papers the server gave him.

On August 7, he denied receiving a summons:



On August 11, he again denied receiving a summons, see last part where he says “Oddity is, I have not got a summons yet…”



On August 13, Holding answered my previous request that he clarify he had been served summons and complaint.  He again denied being served a summons:

 

Knowing Holding was a liar, I specifically asked Holding to name all the documents that he had received from the process server.  If he was lying, his specification would make it impossible to “explain” later.  On August 14, he specified that the Complaint was the only document he received, and that the papers the server gave him did not include a summons.


  
When I informed him that the process server had filed with the court a return of service stating he served both summons and Complaint on Holding, Holding insisted, in an August 25 email, that somebody, (myself or the process server), was lying:
 
But one year after he made these statements, he filed a motion with the Court asking to have his attorney-fees imposed on me. Knowing that the applicable fee-imposition statute required a showing that service of summons and complaint had been “personal”, he plainly declared, through his attorney:

“A summons and complaint were served on defendant in his home state of Florida on August 5, 2015.” (Motion, p. 1, dated August 12, 2016)


The above excerpts are from my Opposition brief where I argued both these and other legal matters showing that the facts of the case did not meet the legal standards for imposition of fees. What did Holding do after he shit himself with worry after I filed my Opposition brief exposing his lies?  He attached a declaration to his Reply brief, “explaining” that the service on August 5 was indeed missing the summons:


…and that the process server served him personally with the summons several weeks later:




Several problems that should have prevented the judge from thinking personal service in this case was established:

a)    It would appear that Holding’s late declaration saying he received personal service of the summons from the same process server weeks later, was a lie, because the server placed in the mail on August 27 his under-oath affidavit that he served summons on Holding on August 5, and he neither expresses nor implies he delivered a summons at any later time.  That is, if Holding was telling the truth, we would expect the server to have admitted he made such second attempt.


b)    The server never did, in fact, EVER file an amended return of service admitting he made any second attempt to serve summons.  He admits to serving summons on August 5.


c)    Holding says that in discussing the issue with the process server, Holding agreed to simply allow them to MAIL the summons to him, which is of course inconsistent with his later claim that the summons was delivered personally:




That makes the server’s failure to file an amended return of service even more suspicious, because the server was hired by me to PERSONALLY serve the summons to Holding.  If you pay a process server to personally serve summons on defendant, and all they do is mail it to Defendant, that’s breach of contract.  Any fool can “mail” a summons to anybody. You hire a process server because of the law’s insistence that service of such lawsuit paperwork be “personal”.  Holding's explanations are not the inerrant word of God.

d)    The process server filed a return of service saying he served Holding personally with summons and Complaint on August 5, but he never filed an amended return of service to correct the date, despite the fact that such amended statement would have been legally mandatory since the original return of service was made under penalty of perjury, and under Holding’s version of the facts, it’s statement that summons was personally served August 5 was false.   Holding wants us to believe the process server was this irresponsible, when in fact serving summons and complaint is usually never close to this complex and convoluted, any dummy over the age of 18, capable of handing papers to another person, can do the job correctly with minimal thinking.

What we are left with, then, is a process server who chose to file only one document with the court, a return of service asserting that summons was served on Holding August 5…and Holding’s denial that this was the case.
 
The point is that the Washington fee-imposition statute requires the court to make a factual finding that service of the suit to be “personal”, and this evidence indicates such service was anything but certain.  Since process servers would not be expected to carry out their duties as carelessly as Holding’s version of the facts would require (their job depends on telling the truth), it is Holding whose story sounds more unbelievable.
This should have been enough to convince the court that since whether the summons was served personally or not, could not be reasonably determined, Holding’s motion for fees failed the statutory criteria, and should have accordingly been denied.

 That Holding is a consummate liar (i.e., that he committed perjury by asserting intentional falsehoods in an under-oath court document) is clear once we focus in just a bit more closely on one of the statements he made.  Let’s look at it again:

 Really?  Holding wants the Court to believe that in August 2015, he was “unaware of what a summons was or that it was a necessary component to initiating a lawsuit”?

I’d love to see Holding “reconcile” the ignorant state of mind he claimed was true about him for August 2015, with a claim he made the previous month, July 2015, that he knew all about the basics of civil litigation sufficiently to not need a lawyer to defend himself.  Here’s a screenshot from the defamatory “skepticbud thread” which Tweb smartly removed from public view:




Lest Holding or his followers trifle that he doesn’t say how long he ran such law library, he specified in a later July 2015 post to the same thread that he had run, in his previous job as a prison librarian, a prison law library for 7 years and saw prisoners filing plenty of civil lawsuits against various Defendants:




How could you have “a lot of experience with pro se litigants” in civil actions, and NOT know that lawsuits require a summons ?(he qualifies later that he was aware of prisoners filing frivolous lawsuits, so Holding cannot trifle that he meant prisoners in criminal cases representing themselves pro se...he obviously meant CIVIL cases)

How could Holding notice “many” inmates filing frivolous lawsuits over the course of 7 years, and NOT know that lawsuits require a summons? 

How could Holding consider himself sufficiently knowledgeable of the basics of civil litigation that he doesn’t need a lawyer, while also NOT knowing that a summons is required to start a lawsuit?  Is holding the kind of person who would profess basic knowledge of auto mechanics, while NOT knowing what an engine is?

How could Holding “know about filing in court and how to do it”, along with all these other claims to knowledge of the requirements of civil litigation, and NOT know the nature of that piece of paper that is necessary to initiating civil lawsuits? 

Gee, maybe between July 2015 and August 2016, the intellectual giant Holding “forgot” about the most basic rudiments of civil litigation?  What else did he forget?  Maybe that Genesis is in the bible?  Apparently the very large storehouse of mental information has an exceptionally large leak.

Sorry, but I publicly accuse Holding of perjury, and he won’t be doing a very convincing job of dumbing down his claimed August 2015 ignorance of summonses, with the legal prowess he boasted of possessing on July 2015.

For those of you who would trifle further in the blind effort to grasp at any speculation in the cosmos that might possibly defend this bitch:  No, there is no legal exception that allows prisoners who file lawsuits from behind bars, to skip the summons and serve only the complaint.

And you know perfectly well that if some atheist bible critic had been caught in this exact same perjury, you wouldn’t be putting forth ANY of the efforts to harmonize this crap, that you do for Holding.  When atheists fuck up, it’s because they are brainless wastes of human flesh.  When juvenile delinquent Christian apologists fuck up, this is their innocent ignorance due to original sin.  FUCK YOU.
 
Lest Holdings followers trifle about maybe this or maybe that, they need to remember that they all think Sparko, owner of theologyweb, is a smart guy.  Let’s see from a July 2015 theologyweb post what his impression was of Holding’s legal knowledge:



Now what?  Maybe you’ll trifle that to “know the legal system inside and out” doesn’t necessarily mean one will know that a summons is required in a lawsuit?  Yeah right…and maybe a Christian could be reasonably said to “know the New Testament inside and out” while being ignorant of Apostle Paul.

You will trifle that maybe Sparko was speaking hyperbolically, but you cannot show anything in the immediate context that would support viewing his words to be hyperbole, while the entire message is bristling with signs that he was speaking plainly.

The truth is that Holding not only lies and exaggerates, he manages to get other allegedly “smart” people to think his claims of superior knowledge are literal and correct.

More replies later, IF I decide to reveal more when in fact due to the pending third lawsuit it could just as easily be argued that I shouldn't reply further.

Friday, November 30, 2018

full text versions of the files in Doscher v. Holding

 See here.

Update: December 3, 2018, more files were added to the archive.


UPDATE:  December 3, 2018

Somebody, likely Mr. Holding since very few people actually give a shit enough his life or mine as to try and keep tabs, challenged me as follows:
Anonymous
December 2, 2018 at 11:37 AM
How do you account for the fact that none of these motions and petitions succeeded in court?

Oh, hello again, Mr. Holding, the fearless warrior whose idea of spiritual battle is uploading defamatory cartoons to YouTube for his juvenile delinquent followers to laugh at, while every legitimately credentialed Christian scholar, including Licona, Habermas, Bowman, Rohrbaugh, Geisler, Archer, Wallace, Blomberg, and basically the big voices for modern evangelicalism from whom you seek support, strongly disagree with your sinful tendency to mistake filthy jesting and slander thrill-fests for spiritually mature "rebuke".

Since you are a smarter and more mature person than me, should I follow your example, and ban your comments here the way you ban my comments from your youtube videos?

Or should I do the stupid immature thing that only frightened losers would do, and address your question comprehensively on the merits?

I'll choose the latter.   If that makes me stupid, all the better.

Here's how I "account for the fact that none of these motions and petitions succeeded in court”.  The "reason" is very close to the way YOU account for most Christian scholars (and indeed most of the laity) seeing NO justification from the bible for YOUR belief that today's Christians have biblical license to hurl insults at their critics. 

The vast majority of Christian scholars disagree with your view on this.

You have not, and never will dare, give the name of any legitimately credentialed Christian scholar who agrees with you on this.

Yet you expect your followers to believe that this tide of expert opinion against means exactly nothing except that the vast majority of Christian scholars are profoundly ignorant about what the bible actually teaches.

You would agree with me also that lots of people are too governed by their false presuppositions and their emotions to correctly understand the issues, or to care about being wrong in their assessments of evidence.  You are quick to accuse all Christians in the world of this defect (with exception, of course, for your infallible followers, those infallible water-walkers who give you money, and the idiots at theologyweb who mistake their sinful jesting and ceaseless entertaining of foolish controversies for God's own presence), and I am quick to similarly claim there’s a good reason why the higher courts often reverse the lower courts and impose discipline on lower-court judges for unprofessional conduct or unjustified ignorance of the law.

Furthermore, the argument is stronger with regard to judges.  Christians, if they misunderstand a biblical thing, this likely isn’t because they are on a power trip.
But judges obviously have great power, and the tendency for them to allow this power to go to their heads and start departing from common sense simply because of personal animosity or proud incompetence is conclusively proven to be a routine plague on the judicial system, given how many times the higher courts reverse the lower courts...or how many times the state Supreme Courts impose discipline on judges for unprofessional conduct or unjustified ignorance of the law. 

The fact that lawyers often disagree vigorously with each other about the law, ought to give your followers significant pause before they automatically assume that YOUR legal arguments are beyond criticism.   And the stupidity that infects the vast majority of your followers makes me suspicious that they care less about whether you are correct, and more about the juvenile thrill they get from your superficial cocky insulting demeanor.

KJV Onlyist Peter Ruckman was as stupid as any prosperity gospel preacher, but his followers, like yours, would just laugh all confidently at anything his critics had to say. 

Your followers might wish to pause a bit before they continue mistaking your cocky confidence for your accuracy.  They are human beings, and therefore legitimately subject to making this mistake as often as millions of other stupid Christians do.

There’s a very good reason why you aren’t allowing the public to view the legal motions we’ve filed against each other.  If you wish to keep up the deception, while looking like you can “argue” something, best to limit your audience’s source material to just bits and pieces. 

But common sense says if you have nothing to hide, you’d allow the public to view all those motions in full for themselves just as much as you allow them to see your videos.

If your followers weren’t born yesterday, then they surely know there’s always two sides to every story, which means it isn’t very smart to automatically assume your best friend’s version of events is the truth.

Since you implicitly challenge the legal correctness of the arguments in my motions in court, here's something for your adoring followers to chew on

In the federal case, the magistrate recommended full dismissal based on his belief that my failure to list that lawsuit properly in my prior bankruptcy left me without standing to sue on any of your libelous comments.  He ordered me to show cause why the entire case should not be dismissed.

I objected, showing that even if some of the libels couldn’t be sued on, many of them, by having been published only AFTER I filed for bankruptcy, therefore remained free of the estate and therefore were not exclusively under the control of the bankruptcy trustee, and thus I could sue on them in my personal capacity.

You replied to my objections, and you replied to that objection specifically, but you admitted that some of the libels might have escaped the bankruptcy.  You cited no case law saying I was required to list in my bankruptcy any potential lawsuits based on actions that you hadn’t even committed yet.  The most you could do to help the post-bankruptcy libels get dismissed along with the others, is to tell the court you were leaving it to the court's discretion.  Translation:  “I have no argument to refute Doscher on this point, but I sure wouldn’t disagree if you chose to turn away from binding legal precedent and use your ‘discretion’ to get rid of this whole thing”.

You are an asshole who likes to stomp his critics unmercifully while boasting about his great level of legal acumen.  If you COULD have "stomped" my argument for preserving some of those libels from dismissal, you surely would have. But you did no such thing. 

Therefore, your followers will have to objectively admit there's a very real and viable possibility that while dismissal of some of the federal lawsuit might have been legally justified, dismissing the entire suit was a miscarriage of justice.

Yes, I have comprehensive replies to your videos in the works.  While I couldn't care less about your stupid uncritical thinking juvenile delinquent followers who mistake cartoons for scholarship, the fact is there are more people in the world, who are respectable, who are likely to find those videos.  Because they are respectable people, they will no doubt google my name, and therefore find my replies at this blog.

Does that answer your question?  Or did the Ritlan disappear from your body 5 seconds after you started reading this?

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

My challenge to Robert Bowman on evolution of theology between Mark and Matthew

Apologist Dr. Robert Bowman indicated to me months ago that he did not intend for his blog to be a place where debates of monograph-level intensity should be held.  I took that as a compliment, and since that time his unwillingness to allow the public to see my responses at his blog is reasonably interpreted to mean that he would rather not deal with my arguments.

Regardless, in a July 2018 blog post Bowman hailed a book which he thought showed high Christology in the gospel that most think was the earliest, Mark:  Jesus the Divine Bridegroom: Michael Tait’s Case for a High Christology in Mark

I posted the following in reply, and since it didn't show up after posting, we'll have to wait and see whether this is because the system is slow, or because Bowman does not want me posting at his blog:

In Mark 6:5, Jesus "could not" do a miracle in his hometown due to the unbelief of the people.  In the parallel in Matthew, the "could not" becomes a "did not" (13:58).

Even inerrantist Christian scholars admit that Matthew here had "toned down" this Markan reference.  Brooks:

"Mark 6:5 This statement about Jesus’ inability to do something is one of the most striking instances of Mark’s boldness and candor. It is omitted by Luke 4:16–30 and toned down by Matt 13:58."
Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System;The New American Commentary (Page 100).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
 While inerrantist can forever trifle about this or that, the fact remains that if Matthew did not believe Mark's wording could reasonably support a low Christology, he would hardly have felt compelled to change "could not" to "did not".  That particular change doesn't look like it was pure coincidence, because by getting rid of the "could not", the phase no longer implies a limitation on Jesus' abilities. 

Regardless, Matthew often "corrects" Mark wherein the disciples or Jesus are portrayed in less than favorable light (e.g., Mark 4:38, this version of the disciples' complaint to Jesus during a storm at sea makes it easy to paint them as skeptical of Jesus' love ["Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"], while in the parallel in Matthew 8:25, this is toned down to something that offers no support for the claim that the disciples were skeptical of Jesus' love ["Save us, Lord; we are perishing!").

Again, inerrantist Christian scholars admit the version of Christ's words "Where is your faith" in Luke 8:25 constitutes lessening the harshness of the earlier version in Mark 4:40 which said "Do you still have no faith?"---
"Luke 8:25 Where is your faith? Luke’s wording lessens the harshness of Mark’s, “Do you still have no faith?” (4:40)."
Stein, R. H. (2001, c1992). Vol. 24: Luke (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System;The New American Commentary (Page 253).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

And don't forget this doozy: Mark's version of Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi is short and clearly lacking in convenient theological baggage:

27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?"
 28 They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets."
 29 And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ."
 30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him. (Mk. 8:27-30 NAU)

But in Matthew's parallel, Peter's confession is more theologically sophisticated, and Matthew includes an entire theological exposition from Jesus on the origin and significance of this Petrine knowledge (the quotes are long to preserve contexts and prevent apologists from pretending that maybe Matthew and Mark are describing similar but different events.  Nope, it's one single event told in two different ways by two different authors):

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."
 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
 17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
 18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
 19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
 20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
 (Matt. 16:13-20 NAU)

The point is that Mark's being the earliest gospel and having such signs of low Christology (i.e., the later gospel authors and their desire to change Markan statements in a way that just happens to create the benefit of making them less supportive of a low-Christology) prohibit apologists from pretending that that signs of high Christology they might find in Mark are the only evidence that counts in any discussion of christian theology "evolving" from low to high over the first few  decades after Jesus died.  The circumstances under which Mark was authored, how much or little he depended on Peter, how much or little he depended on other sources, etc, etc, are all topics of hot controversy even within conservative Christian scholarly circles.  Apologists must honestly admit that when Matthew and Luke change, delete or add to their Markan source, it usually results in the benefit of making a lower Christology harder to support.

Therefore, skeptics can and do have reasonable justification to conclude that the later gospel story from Matthew involves some degree of theological evolution from an earlier more primitive form, a form wherein the Markan writer apparently felt more comfortable than today's Trinitarians in making unqualified statements about Jesus' supernatural limitations.


Screenshot:




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That's all I posted, but I'll add here a table to graphically highlight exactly how Matthew changed Mark's version of Peter's confession to Jesus.  Once you read it, it will be hard to resist the conclusion that

------a) Matthew and Mark are not talking about two similar but different scenes, they are talking about a single scene in two different ways, and
------b) Matthew intended to evolve Mark's lower Christology into something higher by adding things not present in Mark's earlier account, things that the average expected first-century Christian reader of Mark, who didn't know about any other written gospel, would never have thought were implied by Mark's wording:





Mark 8
Matthew 16
27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, 

"Who do people say that I am?"


 28 They told Him, saying,
"John the Baptist;
and others say Elijah;
but others, one of the prophets."

  29 And He continued by questioning them, 
"But who do you say that I am?"

Peter answered and said to Him, 
"You are the Christ."





















 30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him.


 31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.


 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples,


"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"

 14 And they said,
"Some say John the Baptist;
and others, Elijah;
but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."

 15 He said to them,
"But who do you say that I am?"

 16 Simon Peter answered, 
"You are the Christ,

the Son of the living God."



 17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

 18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

 19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

 20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.

 21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You."


I don't know exactly to what degree Bowman or other apologists will try to milk Michael Tait's case for high Markan Christology, but regardless, they are dreaming if they think any Markan statements that sound like the Nicene Creed erase the above-cited cases where the later gospel authors are clearly dissatisfied with Mark's chosen wording and modify it in ways that not coincidentally make the statements less supportive of low Christology.   It will never happen.

At least not until inerrantist Christian scholars like Brooks, Stein and Blomberg stop admitting that Matthew and Luke often "toned down" Mark's chosen wording.  After all, the later author wanting to "tone down" the earlier statement is precisely the motive we'd expect in a later gospel author who wishes to update gospel theology.  If they didn't think Mark's wording could be reasonably employed to support low-Christology, then tell us, Mr. Apologist...what did motivate Matthew and Luke to "tone down" Mark's language?

Maybe because they thought Mark's gospel was inerrant?  Guess again.

My reply to Bellator Christi's "Three Dangerous Forms of Modern Idolatry"

I received this in my email, but the page it was hosted on appears to have been removed  =====================  Bellator Christi Read on blo...