James Patrick Holding fails to properly define the resurrection

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

The Resurrection Series, 

Part 1A: Defining the Resurrection

Arguing to persuade a skeptic, and arguing to help those who already agree with you to feel better about their beliefs being true, are wildly different goals.  Holding apparently isn't arguing to convince skeptics, but only to help his inerrancy-salivating followers to feel more confident that what they believe is actual reality.

That is, true to Holding's consistently stated goal, he only cares about making things convincing to those who already believe.  He is thus analogous to a Mormon apologist who doesn't argue to convince non-Mormons, but only to convince those who already accept the Mormon religion.  Gee, what a tough job.

Holding might consider that if he argued for the purpose of convincing skeptics, his arguments would have to be far more powerful, and would thus have even greater potential to be found persuasive by his followers.

Holding blindly presumes, throughout the video, that if he can establish that physical resurrection was known in and before the first century, then presto, that shall be the lens through which we must interpret the NT statements about Jesus rising from the dead.  Otherwise, what was the point of establishing that pre-Christian concepts of resurrection referred to a physical body?  Why did Holding think establishing such a background was a good idea before getting to the NT statements themselves?

Holding's arguments are simplistic and do not account for the conflicting views of resurrection running loose on the ancient landscape out of which Christianity grew.

Holding starts the video with the scholarly comment that it is necessary to first define what resurrection is, which makes perfect sense...but then he kills any sense of objectivity by immediately inundating the reader with his absurd and sarcastically embellished cartoon characters allegedly representing "fundy atheists".

So Holding needs to explain why he thinks his followers, who are people he would never call stupid or gullible, can be helped toward the truth by such distracting and prejudicial imagery, when in fact such imagery clearly doesn't have relevance to the merit of his arguments.  What is it about these defamatory cartoons that Holding thinks will cause his followers to find his arguments more persuasive than if he simply presented argument alone?

Also, while Holding typically chooses nearly unlistenable Looney Tunes type music as background noise for his video replies to myself and his other critics, the background music for this particular video is much more pleasant.  His employment of psychological tricks like soft background music (reminding one of fundy churches where the soothing piano or organ music isn't heard until the altar call at the end of the sermon) would seem to indicate he thinks the Holy Spirit needs marketing gimmicks used by secular capitalists to make people buy the product.  

Holding is not alone in this, of course, modern Christianity is chock full of unnecessary bells and whistles and other inventions of unbelievers who recognize it's possible to wear down a customer's initial reluctance with such things.  If Holding seriously believed the Holy Spirit doesn't need such crap, he probably would be satisfied that the argument, alone, was sufficient.  So, Mr. Holding...does the Holy Spirit need soft music to aid in his effort to convict people of the truth, yes or no?  If not, then why DO you employ tricks of pesuasion the Holy Spirit doesn't need to do his job?

Could it be that the reason you employ such bells and whistles and other reluctance-reducing tricks is because you don't believe there is any more Holy Spirit in your propaganda than there is in the pitch of a used car salesman?  Liars have to have good memories.  Your unbeliever-status will eventually show up in your works if you don't carefully suppress it at all times.  Yes, I apply the exact same logic to other Christians, which is why I say that if Christianity is true, 99% of its followers are not genuinely born again.  Frank Turek and J. Warner Wallace market their bullshit the way Taco Bell markets tostadas, and I accuse them of the same level of hypocrisy.  Why do you put forth effort to make your presentations interesting and entertaining, if the Holy Spirit does not need such bells and whistles to do his job of teaching/convicting?

timecode 0:18-23, Holding falsely accuses atheists of defining resurrection to mean whatever they want it to mean.  That is an generalization fallacy, since while admittedly not all atheists are as scholarly as they can be, the atheists that are most vocal in their resurrection-attacks do not simply mount the pulpit and scream that resurrection was some esoteric nonsense concept.  Richard Carrier has debated resurrection apologists Mike Licona and William Lane Craig, and both times, provided an objective historical biblical basis for his definition of resurrection.

0:23-0:28, "However the Jewish contextual literature of the period describes the nature of resurrection in some detail."

Apparently Holding thinks that whatever is asserted about resurrection in Jewish contextual literature before and during the first century should control our interpretation of NT statements about Jesus' resurrection.  But it is far from certain that such Jewish contextual literature is consistent enough to justify allowing it to control biblical exegesis.  First, what rising from the dead actually is, even puzzled Jesus' original disciples, which would hardly be the case if its meaning were as "obvious" as modern western Christians think it is:

 9 As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead.
 10 They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant. (Mk. 9:9-10 NAU)

Holding has a choice:  either a) the reason they discussed what rising from the dead meant, is because in the first century, Jewish conceptions of rising from the dead were inconsistent/incoherent, or b) first century Jewish conceptions of rising from the dead were consistent, they obviously refer to the physical body coming out of the grave and being physically restored,  and as a result, we have rational warrant to classify Jesus' disciples as unforgivably ignorant dolts for not even being aware of basic Jewish religious concepts...a characteristic that operates to impeach their general credibility...which reduces the factual force of their alleged "Jesus is risen!" proclamations later (which is to merely pour salt in the wound, since despite Jesus having 12 apostles (Matthew 10:2 ff) , 70 lower ranking disciples (Luke 10:1 ff) and some 500 people who saw him risen all at once (1st Cor. 15:6), the only resurrection accounts in the NT which come down to us today in first-hand form are Matthew, John and Paul (and that's generously granting absurdly dubious assumptions of apostolic authorship of the gospels which I am otherwise prepared to destroy).

Apparently, God was not a Christian apologist in the first century, as he didn't give a fuck about preserving the resurrection testimony of 497 of the 500 alleged eyewitnesses, d espite modern apologists who believe God is moving through them as they tirelessly tout the virtues of eyewitness reporting.

If Holding acknowledges that Jewish concepts about many subjects were inconsistent and confusing (i.e., who the messiah is, when he will arrive, what he will do, what events will precede his coming, how many books should be in the inspired OT canon, etc, etc) why does he pretend that Jewish concepts of resurrection would be helpful background to understanding the specific nuance of resurrection promoted by NT authors?

The Sadducees also had a concept of resurrection:  it was false doctrine (Matthew 22:23) (their OT canon was limited to the books authored by Moses, that's why, despite the fact that Jesus could have cited to Daniel 12 when answering a Sadducee challenge to the resurrection, he limited himself to a quotation from Exodus 3:6, since his opponents denied the canonicity of all OT books outside those authored by Moses).

 23 On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him,
 24 asking, "Teacher, Moses said, 'IF A MAN DIES HAVING NO CHILDREN, HIS BROTHER AS NEXT OF KIN SHALL MARRY HIS WIFE, AND RAISE UP CHILDREN FOR HIS BROTHER.'
 25 "Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother;
 26 so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh.
 27 "Last of all, the woman died.
 28 "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her."
 29 But Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.
 30 "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
 31 "But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God:
 32 'I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB '? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
 33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. (Matt. 22:23-33 NAU)

Needless to say, Jesus' was squeezing blood out of a turnip in squeezing resurrection out of Exodus 3:6, as God's nature would require that he doesn't stop being the God of Abraham just because Abraham died (Romans 14:9).  Yet Jesus argues that God is not a god of the dead (v. 33).

Needless also to say, Jesus, as might be expected, evaded the point:  The issue was not whether God was a god of the dead or the living or both, and the issue wasn't whether Abraham and the others continued conscious existence beyond the grave.  The issue was resurrection from the dead (which according to Holding and his Jewish sources has to do with the dead physical body coming back to life).  And yet Jesus apparently thought Exodus 3:6 was "regarding the resurrection of the dead" (Matthew 23:31).

It is not without violent force that liberals and skeptics assert the subjective confusing manner of
interpretation adopted by Jesus and the NT authors.  Jesus could probably find dvd discs in Deuteronomy.

0:40-0:45 - "Not surprisingly, our first stop is in the Old Testament".

First, correct, coming from a false Christian like Holding who in truth doesn't believe Jesus rose from the dead (he only bothers with Christianity because it gives him numerous opportunities to revel in his sinful desire to talk shit about everything he disagrees with), it is not surprising that Holding gives exegetical first place to the older light,  when in fact common sense says it is the later light (i.e., the NT) that would provide the more comprehensive and accurate definition of resurrection, especially in light of the fact established above, that pre-Christian concepts of resurrection were not consistent.

Second, it is funny that any professing 'Christian' apologist should start their definition of resurrection with Daniel, when in fact literal resurrection was allegedly performed by Elijah and Elisha:

Elijah, who was apparently a necrophiliac pedophile since God wouldn't require you to physically lay on a child merely to resurrect the kid.  From 1st Kings 17:

 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, I pray You, let this child's life return to him."
 22 The LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.
 23 Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Elijah said, "See, your son is alive."

Elisha appears to be a more perverted necrophiliac pedophile, as the way he laid on the child is described with greater unnecessary detail:

 33 So he entered and shut the door behind them both and prayed to the LORD.
 34 And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands, and he stretched himself on him; and the flesh of the child became warm. (2 Ki. 4:33-34 NAU)

Did appropriation of God's resurrection power require that this man physically lay on this child in such disgusting close intimacy?

What would you think of a Christian doctor who came out to your house, and said he could effect a divine cure for your 5 year old son's flu by laying on his body and putting his mouth on the child's mouth?

Isn't it funny that as long as its not sources from the bible, you agree with all skeptics that such acts are total bullshit?

Holding then quotes Daniel 12:2-3 and Isaiah 26:19.

At 1:00 ff, he also quotes Ezekiel 37:5-9.

1:09 ff, "these three passages, especially Ezekiel, are programmatic.  Clearly some sort of physical body is involved in these descriptions."

 Unfortunately, other conservative Protestant Evangelical inerrantist Christian scholars admit that whether Ezekiel intends anything like the resurrection in 1st Cor. 15, is a matter of scholarly dispute, and so Holding is, again, guilty of falsely pretending that ambiguous bible texts "clearly" teach whatever he says they teach. L. E. Cooper says:

This literature presented its message in symbols and visions whose meanings were not immediately apparent...

 (yet Holding just quoted Ezekiel 37 with little commentary to the viewer, as if he expects the meaning of the passage to be immediately apparent)

...Regarding the resurrection of the dead, there is nothing in the Old Testament that can compare to New Testament passages like 1 Cor 15:1–58. Most interpreters agree that teaching a doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was not the main point of Ezek 37. Zimmerli denies any thought in the passage of the resurrection of individuals. Wevers also denies any hint of the resurrection in vv. 1–14 but does acknowledge the belief that Yahweh was the author of life, and the possibility of the resurrection is left open. Cooke simply said that the passage referred to the “present state of the living, not to the future state of the dead.” But then he admitted that vv. 1–14 must have contributed to the development of the resurrection ideas in the Old Testament, especially in its most highly developed expression in Dan 12:2–3.62
Hals similarly noted that only a national resurrection was in view but admitted he found curious the imagery of vv. 1–14 portrayed on the wall of a synagogue in Dura-Europos as an illustration of the promise of resurrection from the grave.
Several interpreters deny the possibility that Ezekiel would have been aware of a developed concept of the resurrection of the human body as we already have noted. Death in most of the Old Testament was viewed as an impossible situation from which there was no return. All who died went to the grave called sheol from which no one returned. Hals was therefore surprised by the imagery of vv. 1–14, which obviously rose above this view of death.64
Ezekiel’s primary purpose was not to teach a doctrine of the resurrection. The main purpose of the vision was the restoration of Israel.
Cooper, L. E. (2001, c1994). Vol. 17: Ezekiel (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;
The New American Commentary (Page 319). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

But apparently, Holding disagrees with other inerrantist Christian scholars and thinks the meaning of Ezekiel's vision is "immediately apparent".  Fundy exegesis does that to your brain.  All the scholars who agree with you are smart guys.  All the scholars who disagree with you are just stupid morons.

And lets not forget the type of people Holding is depending on, since their ways would strongly suggest under NT criteria that they were not inspired by the God who works in the lives of today's western Christians:

Isaiah - ran naked through the streets of Jerusalem, apparently thinking the dolts to receive the message wouldn't get the point unless he made it in an absurdly graphic way that was horrifically shameful in that culture:

 2 at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet." And he did so, going naked and barefoot.
 3 And the LORD said, "Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against Egypt and Cush,
 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. (Isa. 20:2-4 NAU)

Ezekiel - thought God wanted him to eat paper:

 1 Then He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel."

 2 So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll.

 3 He said to me, "Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you." Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.   (Ezek. 3:1-3 NAU)

He uses a sword to cut off his beard, then burns and plays with the hairs:

 1 "As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword; take and use it as a barber's razor on your head and beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair.

 2 "One third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

 3 "Take also a few in number from them and bind them in the edges of your robes.

 4 "Take again some of them and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel. (Ezek. 5:1-4 NAU)

He opposes God’s command that he bake bread over human dung, so God changes his mind and decides cow dung will suffice, and Ezekiel goes along with the change:

12 "You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung."

13 Then the LORD said, "Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them."

14 But I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth."

15 Then He said to me, "See, I will give you cow's dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread."  (Eze 4:12-15 NAU)

He lays on his side for more than a year, then his other side for 40 days, all just to make a point:

 4 "As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it.

 5 "For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

 6 "When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. (Ezek. 4:4-6 NAU)

Then he gives a speech wherein he uses unnecessarily graphic sexual language to condemn sin (if your child is reading this with you, send him out of the room first):

 17 Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust.

 18 When she carried on her prostitution openly and exposed her naked body, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.

 19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt.

 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

 21 So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled. (Ezek. 23:17-21 NIV)

Inerrantist commentaries agree "emission" is nothing other than explicit sexual imagery:

Also Judah’s political prostitution was presented in explicit sexual terminology. This idolatry produced the same revulsion by God that prompted him to annihilate their forefathers in the wilderness for the worship of the gods of Egypt (v. 21; Exod 32:11–18). Judah lusted for her lovers whose “genitals were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of horses” (v. 20). These proverbial phrases were intended to show divine contempt for those attracted by the military power portrayed by reference to sexual potency.

Cooper, L. E. (2001, c1994). Vol. 17: Ezekiel, New American Commentary

If you saw such a man doing these things in a time and circumstance where your apologetics defense mechanisms were not on red alert, you would have no trouble agreeing with everybody else that this man doesn't have the least bit of credibility and is suffering from a mental illness or is seriously stoned on drugs…or likely both.  But no, this crap is "in the bible", so surely it must be good and wise.

1:30 ff, Holding hypocritically cites intertestamental literature of 4th Ezra and 1st Enoch as if it was assuredly reliable for telling about Jewish views on resurrection, despite his other belief that these works were not reliable enough to deserve being placed in the biblical canon.

What Holding doesn't tell you is that there was an extensive literature produced by Jews up to the first century, and resurrection of the body was just one of many different conflicting evolving ideas floating around in such Jewish lore.  It would thus appear that original Christianity was nothing more than one of the many ways Judaism continued to evolve with its ever-changing fairy tales.

Holding cites to 4th Ezra, what he doesn't do is give you the context, for had he done so, the credibility of that source would have been called into question:

4Ezr 7:28-       For my son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years.

4Ezr 7:29-       And after these years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath.

4Ezr 7:30-       And the world shall be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at the first beginnings; so that no one shall be left.

4Ezr 7:31-       And after seven days the world, which is not yet awake, shall be roused, and that which is corruptible shall perish.

4Ezr 7:32-       And the earth shall give up those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who dwell silently in it; and the chambers shall give up the souls which have been committed to them.

4Ezr 7:33-       And the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment, and compassion shall pass away, and patience shall be withdrawn;

4Ezr 7:34-       but only judgment shall remain, truth shall stand, and faithfulness shall grow strong.

4Ezr 7:35-       And recompense shall follow, and the reward shall be manifested; righteous deeds shall awake, and unrighteous deeds shall not sleep.

Notice the errors of the Ezra author, which impeach his credibility on theological matters too:

7:29, all humanity will die around the time that the Messiah does.
7:30, the world at the time of the Messiah's and everybody else's death will revert to the silent way it was in primeval times, this is phrase in absolutes: "no one shall be left".  Yet obviously humanity didn't die off when Jesus died.
7:30, this primeval state will last for 7 days, but the NT does not teach any 7 day period in which all humanity is dead before the general resurrection.

As far as 1st Enoch 51, R.H. Charles says

"Conflicting views are advanced on the Messiah, the Messianic kingdom, the origin of sin, Sheol, the final judgement, the resurrection, and the nature of the future life."  (The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English : with introductions and critical and explanatory notes to the several books. by Charles, R. H. (Robert Henry), 1855-1931. Apocryphile Press Edition, 2004, p. 164)

2nd Baruch says the resurrection will not change the form of the person, (50:2) and in context, that meant that just as the earth received the body, so shall the body also rise restored from the earth.  This is in conflict with Paul's doctrine of the resurrection which knows of no period of resurrected state before the change, but that the resurrection would BE the change:

 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Cor. 15:51-53 NAU)

Also, Holding gave the citations to the intertestamental literature in the following order:

4 Ezra 7:32

1 Enoch 51:1

Sib. Or. IV

2 Baruch 50:2ff

Pseudo-Phocylides 103-4

What's interesting is that some person going under the pseudonym Socraticknight posted these references in this exact same order, on a webpage discussing the 2006 Craig-Ehrman resurrection debate:

Socratricknight said...
Evidence for the physical resurrection (as a back drop for the physical resurrection of Jesus the Christ), from other Jewish scriptures:
C) Psydo- writings
a. 4 Ezra 7:32 The earth shall restore those who sleep in her, and the dust those who rest in it, and the chambers those entrusted to them.
b. 1 Enoch 51:1 In those days, the earth will also give back what has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will give back what it has received, and hell will give back what it owes.
c. Sib. Or. IV ...God Himself will refashion the bones and ashes of humans and raise up mortals as they were before.
d. 2 Baruch 50:2ff For certainly the earth will then restore the dead. It will not change their form, but just as it received them, so it will restore them.
e. Pseudo-Phocylides 103-4 ...we hope that the remains of the departed will soon come to light again out of the earth. And afterward, they will become gods.

Socraticknight's bio is as follows:

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Apparently, Holding is either stealing somebody else's work, or Socraticknight is some of the force behind the omniscient Mr. Holding.  The order isn't likely a coincidence.  But that unfortunately means that this Socraticknight, who seems to be courteous and professional, is willing to partner with the despicable Mr. Holding who never graduated Christian ethics kindergarten.

If Mr. Socraticknight is reading this, he might wish to read some of my documented evidence that Holding's moral failures disqualify him, under NT criteria, from any teaching position.

Nobody doubts that a concept of physical resurrection existed in first-century religion.  Yes, the skeptics who allocate it all into the spiritual category are wrong.  But that hardly makes the fatal problems in the NT concepts of resurrection suddenly disappear.

2:10 ff, Holding then concludes on these historical grounds that "resurrection was a physical event involving the bodies of the deceased in real time.  Second, it was a restoration of the body the person had in life, using the same material, or stuff the body was made of.  This is clearly what we find described in the New Testament gospels.:"

First, Holding only derives the conclusion about physicality by ignoring the Sadducees who denied the resurrection in full. It is far from obvious that their denial of this and their 5-book canon constituted error. Pharisaic Judaism became more popular, of course, but popularity doesn't determine truth.  I suppose Holding avoided mentioning the Sadducees because

• to mention them is to allow his viewers to ask the question of how these particular Jews could deny a resurrection theory that Holding pretends was such an obvious clear staple of normative Judaism...
• thus leading to questions about Judaism itself being nothing more than a ceaselessly evolving religion...
• thus leading to the conclusion that what the ancient Jews thought about resurrection is too ambiguous and inconsistent to qualify as the interpretive lens through which Holding apparently thinks the NT resurrection claims should be viewed.

Second, regarding Holding's statement that resurrection was of the same "stuff" the earthly body had been made of, Mike Licona was clobbered to death on that point by Greg Cavin, goto time-code 137:15, where Cavin drills Licona on the point and demonstrates how deceptively vacuous the term "resurrected body" really is.  No wonder Cavin called it a "pixie dust" theory.  We may as well talk about Tinkerbell's magic glitter, and how it really can change a frog into a prince even though we cannot provide adequate or coherent descriptions of what it is or how it works.

Third, Holding boasts that this physical resurrection is "clearly" what we find described in the NT gospels, but while it cannot be denied they sometimes specify that Jesus appeared to them physically (Luke 24:39, John 20:27), the gospels are not consistent in this regard:

a) Matthew admits in 28:17 that some of the 11 "doubted", the only other place this Greek word distazo appears in the NT is Matthew 14:31, where Jesus rebukes Peter for lacking minimally sufficient faith, strongly arguing that in 28:17, the same author Matthew intended to convey that some of the 11 lacked minimally sufficient faith to see what the rest of the group were "seeing", suggesting that to see what the others were seeing, required minimally sufficient faith, and thus this Jesus could not be physically seen.

b) Luke strangely asserts in 24:16 that the reason the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn't notice that the stranger walking with them was Jesus, was because some supernatural power was preventing them from recognizing him.  Luke likes this motif, divinely caused stupidity is also asserted in 9:45 and 18:34.  One inerrantist Christian scholar tries to make a serious point where it is impossible to do so:

The passive “were kept from recognizing” is a divine passive, i.e., God kept them from recognizing Jesus . This lack of recognition allowed Jesus to teach the necessity of his death and resurrection and to show how this was the fulfillment of Scripture (Luke 24:25–27).
Stein, R. H. (2001, c1992). Vol. 24: Luke (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 610). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

That makes no sense, since in light of his allegedly three year ministry beforehand, Jesus taught the necessity of his death and resurrection and to show how this was the fulfillment of scripture.  Disguising himself would do little more than cause the skeptical disciples to write him off as just another follower with a theory, while if Jesus taught these things after convincing them it was really him, risen from the dead, these "lessons" would be etched into their memories more deeply.

c) Luke 24:31 says when they finally recognized him, he vanished from their sight.  Unfortunately 1) the idea that a physical body could just vanish is for good reason limited solely to cartoons and other fictions, such a feat is contrary to the same daily experience creationists tell us to rely on when they say "we know" that life doesn't ever come from non-life, and vanishing constitutes an incoherent idea regardless, especially in this context where it is allegedly a physical body that disappears.

If you told somebody that the gallon of milk you were carrying home from the store suddenly 'vanished', even fanatically obsessed apologists who go around trying to make the case for miracles, would harbor initial skepticism, knowing, like David Hume, that this kind of crap doesn't happen and therefore either you are lying or deluded, 2) if you were watching a criminal trial in which a man was being prosecuted for theft and the only witness against him said that while the thief was standing two feet in front of the witness, he just vanished and suddenly wasn't there anymore, would you strongly suspect the witness has severe credibility problems?  Or would you want the judge to instruct the jury that they are allowed to infer the supernatural if they feel the Defendant used supernatural power in the commission of the crime?

d) the same problem of physical humans doing that which is physically impossible appears in John 20:26, where Jesus materializes inside a closed room.  The only reason anybody thinks this crap plausible is because they've been conditioned to accept it as plausible by watching too many cartoons, movies, and reading too many fiction books.

e) for those who think Mark is the author of Mark 16:9-20, this text blatantly asserts that after Jesus appeared to Mary, he appeared to the disciples "in another form":

 9 Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.
 10 She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping.
 11 When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it.
 12 After that, He appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. (Mk. 16:9-12 NAU)

The Greek word for 'form' is morphe, and means form or shape and most inerrantist scholars think it means "what a thing really is as opposed to what it looks like" when it is used in Philippians 2:6 to say that Jesus was in the "form" of God.  So apparently this physically resurrected Jesus also had the cartoon-attribute of changing his physical attributes and so disguise himself so convincingly that not even those closest to him for the last three years would recognize it was him.

In summary,

• Holding blindly and falsely assumes that pre-Christian concepts of resurrection were consistent, they were not.  
• He also assumes OT texts like Ezekiel 37 have a meaning that is apparent on their face, when other inerrantist Christian scholars deny this is the case.  
• He seems to think that because the NT gospels at certain times speak about a physically resurrected Jesus, a physically resurrected Jesus is the only way they describe him, which is also untrue. 
• Holding doesn't deal with something any alleged "apologist" should have dealt with, the problem of the resurrection definition being fallaciously question begging by necessitating belief in other things for which there is no evidence, such as physical bodies that can vanish like cartoon characters. To say the resurrected body is "physical" means nothing if this must be qualified to mean that the body doesn't age, doesn't get hurt, can disappear, float, etc.
• Finally, he violated the order of exegesis required by the resurrected Jesus, for while Holding wished to start with sources other than the NT, the resurrected Jesus's explanation of pre-Christian concepts of resurrection is the logical place for the "bible-believing" inerrantist to start (Luke 24:27), as in the Christian world view, Jesus is the "later light", there is no more authoritative definition for anything, than the definition Jesus himself gives.

But if, like Holding, you aren't really a Christian in the first place, and you simply side with Christianity because doing so gives you something to bitch about,  you aren't likely to view the NT as the interpretive lens through which to see the OT, you are likely to invert this divine method of exegesis.

A fine example of why James Patrick Holding uses cartoons to teach his supporters

Apparently some follower of James Patrick Holding, using the pseudonym "Victor Polk" just can't stand the heat, and is now following me around the web replying to my posts about James Patrick Holding.

Polk's latest was in reply to what I said at another Christian webpage entitled Apologetics Harms and Offends People.

Here's what I argued there, and how Polk replied:

barry says:  Thanks for the reply.Mr. Holding attempts to show biblical justification for his insulting style, with the article at the link i provided, www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.... Since you clearly disagree with Holding's conclusions, I was wondering what flaws you believe are present in the arguments he sets forth in said article to support his vitriolic name-calling. What I'm still trying to process is that the Context Group scholar he cites most there, Richard Rohrbaugh, has already read the article and told me it is an "obvious perversion" of Context Group work (personal email to me), and although I've been repeatedly reminding Mr. Holding of that criticism for more than a year, he has refused to change the article!

Victor Polk
He insults others who were either mean to him or showing some intellectual dishonesty towards theology. While he may uses some attacks to call out their misinformation, he is still what I call a gifted apologist.
 Wouldn’t that be ironic to say that he insults others while you basically insulted him? Whoops.

As usual, there are multiple problems with Polk's attempt to save Holding's reputation:

First, the only reason I mentioned something about Holding at that webpage, was because that was the writing of another Christian whose view was directly opposite to Holding's, and I was seeking another Christian opinion.  Polk found that post and now apparently wants to soil that webpage with his own faulty arguments that he is apparently hoping I will reply to there.  I won't participate in helping Polk throw his shit around on other people's websites, so instead I answer him here.

Second, like most of Holding's minions, Polk's attempted defense of Holding's integrity involves no scripture quotes.  I sued Holding for libel, twice.  One would expect that if a supporter of Holding wished to defend his reputation this late in the game, one would show Holding's conduct didn't violate the many NT commands against slander.  Nope, as predicted, Holding panders to intellectual lowlifes who seek him out for a verbal thrill-fest, not because they give two-shits about their alleged faith.

For these losers, Christianity is not reality, it is instead a fun game to enter so as to give them something to bitch about, not too different from football or wrestling.  For obvious reasons, there are no spiritually mature people who give the least fuck about Holding's ministry, the only people who donate their cash to him are immature juvenile delinquent "20-something-going-on-12" types who get a psychological high from his cocky confidence, nothing more.

Third, Jesus said slander is among the evils that proceed from the heart,

 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. 15:18-20 NAU)

and there is nothing in the context to limit it to slanders against other Christians (that wouldn't matter anyway, as Holding slanders his Christian opponents like Hays and White no less than he slanders unbelievers, see here).  and nothing in the context allowing an exemption for slanders based on "truth".

And you cannot use other parts of the bible as an interpretive lens through which to see this verse since

a) Jesus apparently gave that saying orally before the NT was written, so what it meant to the original hearers its original context form is a more objective way to exegete, and

b) bible inerracy is hotly debated by Christians themselves, from what its scope and extent are, to outright denial of the doctrine (i.e., the position taken by most Christian scholars on it).  Because bible inerrancy has nowhere near the universal acclaim that other tools of interpretation have, such as "grammar" and "context" and "genre" (i.e., tools that everybody agree are valid), using bible inerrancy to get away from what Jesus said (i.e., limiting the scope of his slander-prohibition in Matthew 15 by merely running away to some other bible verse you think justifies Christians in slandering others) is nothing short of dishonest.

Third, at least one of those defamation prohibitions was interpreted by Holding's favorite scholars, the Context Group, as forbidding Christians from engaging in verbal insult-for-insult even when talking with unbelievers.  As I pointed out in another blog piece:

Holding lauds the Context Group (or did before he found out they think he is a dishonest immoral perverter of basic biblical morality, and yet the Context Group thinks Peter requires modern Christians to avoid insulting the unbelievers who insult them:
... this is what John H. Elliott, chair of the Context Group, had to say about riposte when discussing the instruction given by Peter to the addressees of 1 Peter.

First, the addressees are warned not to engage in the usual spitting match of riposte and retaliation. They are not to return "injury for injury" or "insult for insult" (3:9; see also the proscription of slander in 2:1), just as Jesus when insulted did not retaliate (2:23, echoing Isa 52:7and details of the passion narrative [Mark 14:61//Matt 26:63; Mark 15:5//Matt 27:12-14; Luke 23:9; John 19:9]). Rather, they are urged to bless their insulters (3:9c) and to disprove their slanderers with honorable and irreproachable modes of behavior within and beyond the community (2:12), for actions speak louder than words (3:1-2).

See here for this quote from the original source. 

Jesus' slanderers were unbelievers, yet he still did not return insult-for-insult.  Yet Holding's 20-year history of internet-based slanders is too well known, as I document extensively here, and as documented even more extensively in my First Amended Complaint from my federal lawsuit against Holding, a full copy of which I will gladly give to anybody who asks, you can contact me by reply to this blog or request by email to barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

I'll now answer Polk point by point:

He insults others who were either mean to him or showing some intellectual dishonesty towards theology. 

-------------The problem is
a) there is no biblical justification for Christians to do this,
b) the bible clearly prohibits Christians from insulting others,
c) as documented extensively here, every Christian scholar with a Ph.d that I've been able to contact (including Blomberg), thinks Holding's slanders violate basic NT ethics,  and
d) as documented extensively here the Context Group said the same and worse, specifically, Dr. Richard Rohrbaugh, who said Holding's magnum opus argument to justify vicious insults (which Holding has changed about 10 times following my lawsuits against him), constituted an "obvious perversion" of all Context Group scholarship as well as the NT itself.

So merely pointing out that Holding insults critics who were mean or dishonest with him, proves nothing, except perhaps that Holding never graduated from Christian kindergarten.

Also, Holding's illegal slanders of me in 2015-16 did not arise from me being mean to him or me showing any intellectual dishonesty toward him.  They arose solely from my making sure plenty of Holding's supporters at theologyweb knew that the scholar Holding relied on the most to justify insults, said Holding gives Christianity a bad name, deserves no respect, and that nobody should pay any attention to him.

As I said in another piece:

The first disowning

----In 2008, I had a debate with Holding at Tweb, in which he engaged is his usual unnecessary amounts of spite and invective.  I emailed Dr. Rohrbaugh in 2008, sent him a sample of Holding's highly insulting unnecessarily vituperative language toward me, and asked him in several different ways whether a modern-day Christian could justify using that kind of language from the bible.  Rohrbaugh replied that such words indicate Holding gives Christianity a bad name, he needs serious psychological help, he has no manners, and neither Rohrbaugh nor any other scholar he could think of, would wish to be associated with Holding.

----I posted Rohrbaugh's answer to Tweb in my defense.  As predicted, Tweb, like any jailhouse lawyer or politician, invoked the trifling technicality that I didn't first get Rohrbaugh's permission, and thereby deleted the post (as if violation of their rule was more frightful to them than the obvious truth that their faith-hero Holding was proven to be a dishonest scumbag). But, asshole that I am, I knew that would happen, so I posted the same to the old FRDB boards, and it is thankfully still preserved in full.  Check it out.

 THAT is what made Holding go crazy with his "Internet predator alert" obsession, which he was forced to take down because his lawyer told him it constituted genuine libel.  Holding is a fucking asshole in every way, he doesn't extend mercy to his critics, especially those he considers the most vile, like me.  So when you ask Holding why he took down his Internet Predator Alert on me despite believing sincerely that it was factually and legally justified, you can be sure that "I wanted to extend barry some mercy" won't be one of his excuses.  He got slapped in the head with a legal 2x4, that's the only reason an obsessed know-it-all asshole like Holding would ever back down from any verbal assault.  

While he may uses some attacks to call out their misinformation, he is still what I call a gifted apologist.

Holding didn't insult me in that limited way, he spread provably false lies about me and my history with other people, even saying 7 police reports showed I had definitely not been a good boy, when in fact those 7 police reports never expressed or implied that I was accused of, arrested for or convicted of any crime or civil infractions.

And you'll be horrified to learn that under NT criteria, Holding's intentional sins of slander and homosexuality would continue disqualifying him from any "teaching" position even if one could prove Holding was a super smart scholar of the bible.  Apparently, you supporters of Holding have not much more than a cartoon-level understanding of the bible (which might explain why Holding tries to teach you theology by means of cartoons).  A teacher's level of smarts cannot ever trump his moral failings.  But you blind bats apparently don't give a fuck, Holding is fun to read and watch, thus testifying to the unspeakably shallow nature of your "faith".  

Wouldn’t that be ironic to say that he insults others while you basically insulted him? Whoops.

-------Is there no end to your thickheadedness?

a) I never subscribed to a bible or ethical system that identifies slander as sin or always immoral.  Holding did. America forbids slander and libel, that's why lawsuits for such are allowed.  And since these laws of America don't contradict anything in the bible, Holding's profession of "biblical" faith requires him to obey Romans 13 and thus obey all civil authorities where they don't conflict with the bible, such as America's laws against libel.

So either find those bible verses that allow Christians to spread lies about unbelievers (the way Holding spread lies about me, justifying my two lawsuits against him) or admit that Holding not only sinned against me, but did so willfully (the smarter he is, the less excuse he has spreading lies about me).  No, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not the only unforgivable sin, any sin that is done intentionally is also unforgivable, Hebrews 10:26.

No, Holding has never apologized for telling such lies about me.  Gee, maybe there's a bible verse in your head that says Christians who spread lies about others, don't have to apologize to the victim?  But Paul said the Christian teacher was to do all that is possible to live peaceably among all men (Romans 12:18), and that would obviously include the peace-making gesture of apologizing for his wrongs,  a thing most mature adults require their small children to do.

And my lawsuits documented multiple times in which Holding intentionally lied in circumstances where any reasonable person with even half of his professed intellect would have known the truth.  But you won't be asking me for a copy of those Complaints, because of how scared you are of the truth yourself.  Just keeping telling yourself that Holding is a gifted apologist, while carefully turning away from any evidence to the contrary.  That's how battered women convince themselves to stay in situations to stay with men who are obviously no good to them.

b) You aren't taking any of the heat off of Holding by pointing at your enemy and telling the teacher "but he does it too!?"  Holding is still a foul-mouthed hypocritical asshole.  What other people do doesn't change the facts about Holding.

c) My insults of Holding do not rise to the level of defamation or libel that is actionable in a lawsuit, while Holding's insults toward me did.  Be sure to ask him why he didn't seek to have my lawsuits dismissed on the merits with a motion to dismiss, if he seriously believed, as he publicly asserted so many times, that his words about me were factually and legally justified truth.  Motioning to dismiss on the merits (i.e., proving his words about me were truthful and thus not defamatory) could have been accomplished within one month of his receiving the Complaint in each case, especially given Holding's boast at Tweb in 2015 that my lawsuits against him were as frivolous as if somebody sued Colorado merely because it looked like Wyoming.

Yet Holding didn't dare attempt dismissal on the merits.  That's because he is a lying conniving pig, more worried to escape justice by means of dishonest technicalities invented by non-Christian Pharisee-types,  than in doing the morally right thing.

The facts are not on your side, and if you support Holding, you deserve to be fleeced and fucked accordingly.

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

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

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

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

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

I maintain that common sense refutes Blomberg on this point:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Correcting James Patrick Holding on Matthew 18 and church discipline

Plenty of Christian scholars think rambo apologetics is total bullshit, including specifically Holding's incompetent insult-fests.


 12 "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matt. 7:12 NAU)

So perhaps Holding seriously wants his critics to insult him with cartoon videos that help incompetent buffoons mistake entertainment for education?

Holding, in yet another cartoon video (telling us about the mentality of the people he takes money from) argues that Jesus' command in Matthew 18 about how the Christian should react when sinned against by another Christian, does not apply to the situation of the Christian sinning against a non-Christian.

Here's the text in dispute:

 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)

Here are the problems with Holding's interpretation:

Before I even get started, how about the Golden Rule?  "Do unto

First, as usual, Holding sets forth his interpretation in a cartoon video that appears to have been created for not much more purpose than for Holding to see some type of real-world realization of his mental fantasy that he is far superior to his critics.  In this video, Holding pretends to be the "judge", I am characterized by the ugly and stupid sounding criminal headed to jail, and Holding's interpretation of Matthew 18 becomes the basis for this fool judge to send me to "debtor's prison" where I am bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate.

(!?)

Second, Holding's cartoon presentation is obviously geared to impress gullible idiots, it is not geared to impress academics or scholars, and thus is a valid basis for accusing him of being more worried to keep fleecing his idiot followers by dancing to their juvenile tune, than being worried to make persuasive argument in a serious context.

Third,  sure, Matthew 18 isn't talking about the specific case of Christians sinning against unbelievers, but nothing in the bible is specifically talking about Christians living in 2018.

Can Holding think of any bible passage that gets closer to the issue of Christians sinning against unbelievers, than Matthew 18? Or did the all-knowing God of classical theism think that Christians weren't capable of sinning against unbelievers?

Fourth, what is Holding's advice to Christians who are guilty of having slandered an unbeliever in a way justifying a libel lawsuit? Since Holding didn't dare attempt to get my two lawsuits against him dismissed on the merits (i.e., arguing that his factual allegations about me were true), Holding's answer to this particular dilemma will be interesting.  One thing we can be sure of, Holding doesn't think he should be held morally or civilly accountable for violating Romans 13 and libeling another person in modern day America, which has laws allowing the defamed person to sue for damages.  Perhaps Holding will now do a Looney Tunes video on how only idiots think America's laws against defamation and libel fall under Romans 13, because those laws make illegal the type of shaming that God approved of in the bible.

Fifth, Holding twice offered to settle my first libel lawsuit against him.  Some might argue that an especially pretentious trifling asshole like Holding would never attempt such a thing if he seriously felt the lawsuit in question was the stupendously frivolous thing he trumpeted it to be.  The point is that Holding, at the time he offered to settle, apparently thought some damn thing or other in the bible applied to the situation of a modern-day Christian being sued by an unbeliever.  If so, then apparently Holding doesn't need to be convinced that a bible passage is directly addressing problems between Christians and unbelievers, before he will be willing to apply their reasoning to his own problems with unbelievers.

Sixth, now the question is:  If Matthew 18's reasoning shouldn't be applied to the situation of a modern-day Christian libeling and thus sinning against an unbeliever, then does Holding seriously think that because the bible doesn't directly address that situation, his god finds it morally good for Holding to run away and hide from the merits of legal accusations against him?

If a Christian stole the life-savings of an unbeliever, would Holding argue that there is nothing in he bible requiring the Christian to pay the money back, given his black and white fundy view that the bible also doesn't specifically require Christians to rebuke other Christians who have sinned against third-parties?

Seventh, did Jesus's teachings harmonize or contradict?  If they harmonize, as Holding would insist given his absurd obsession with "inerrancy", then Jesus required Christians to love their enemies:

 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.'
 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
 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. 5:43-48 NAU)

Nothing could be more obvious from Holding's obsessive reactionary stance against me that he and his followers view me as an "enemy", they think my lawsuits against Holding were frivolous and therefore I was "persecuting" him through the Court system, they also think my blog exposing his homosexuality and other obvious moral failings constitute similar "persecution", and both he and they view me as "evil" and "unrighteous".

Meaning, Jesus puts Holding under a duty to "love" his enemies, one of which is me, a person he says is evil.  Now all that needs to be addressed is how Jesus defined the specific sort of "love" he wanted the disciples to express toward evil people who persecute them.

Let's indulge Holding's dogshit obsession with inerrancy:  Jesus and Paul surely must have agreed on what constitutes "loving one's enemies", right?

10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;
 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;
 12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,
 13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
 16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.
 17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.
 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.
 20 "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD."
 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:10-21 NAU)

To make sure Holding and his followers further breach the existing fracture that already divides them from the conservative inerrantist Christian scholarly community, I supply below a lengthy quote from inerrantist evangelical scholar R. H. Mounce, writing for the inerrantist-driven New American Commentary:

12:17–21 The natural impulse is to return injury for injury. But retaliation for personal injury is not for those who claim to follow the one who told his disciples to turn the other cheek and go the second mile (Matt 5:39, 41; cf. Gal 6:10; 1 Thess 5:15; 1 Pet 3:9). Instead, believers are to be careful to do what is honorable in the sight of everyone (cf. Prov 3:4). The early church understood the necessity of having a good reputation with outsiders (1 Tim 3:7). Although it is imperative that believers take pains to do what is right in God’s sight, it also is important that what we do, as long as it does not violate Christian ethics, is well thought of by the world (cf. 2 Cor 8:21). In so far as it is possible, we are called to live at peace with everyone. Wickedness is to be opposed and righteousness lauded, but Christians must be careful not to allow their allegiance to God to alienate them from the world they are intended to reach with the gospel. Jesus pronounced a blessing upon the peacemaker (Matt 5:9), and the author to Hebrews wrote that we are to “make every effort to live in peace with all men” (Heb 12:14).

Christians are never to take vengeance into their own hands (v. 19; cf. Lev 19:18). Rather, we must allow the wrath of God to follow its own course. After all, it is written: “It is for me to avenge. I am the one who will repay.” Christians are not called upon to help God carry out divine retribution. God has promised to “pay back trouble to those who trouble you” (2 Thess 1:6). He has no need of our help or advice. Genuine trust will leave everything in his hands. Rather than to take revenge we are to feed our enemies if they are hungry and give them something to drink if they are thirsty. In this way we will “make him feel a burning sense of shame” (Moffatt). Verse 21 summarizes much of what has just been said. Instead of allowing evil to get the upper hand and bring defeat, win the victory against that which is wrong by doing what is right. Bruce comments, “The best way to get rid of an enemy is to turn him into a friend.” Our most powerful weapon against evil is the good. To respond to evil with evil is not to overcome it but to add to it. Believers are called upon to live victoriously in a hostile world by continuing to live as Jesus lived. Right will inevitably prevail against wrong. God is on his throne, and though all is not right in this world, he is the one who will avenge the wicked and reward the righteous.

Mounce, R. H. (2001, c1995). Vol. 27: Romans (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 240).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Because America has laws allowing lawsuits for defamation/libel, it is clear that, without argument that such secular laws contradict the bible, Romans 12, supra, is requiring today's Christians to do what is right in the sight of modern America (i.e., to refrain from libel and slander).  Maybe Holding will be sure to remind his readers, while he is contradicting Mounce, that Mounce is a "moron" for seeing things differently than Holding.

What's worse, most conservative Christian scholars see nothing in the bible justifying ceaseless vitriolic attacks on bible critics, so that Holding's doing this means he isn't just contradicting what's right in the sight of all men, he lives in contradiction to what most genuinely born-again and thus Spirit-filled conservative Christian scholars think is the right way.

The Samaritans were bitter enemies of the Jews in the first century and before, so it is significant that Jesus teaches that the Christian's "neighbor", whom the Christian is supposed to "love", is a Gentile and a bitter enemy of the Jews:

 He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
 27 And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
 28 And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE."
 29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
 30 Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
 31 "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
 32 "Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
 33 "But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,
 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
 35 "On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.'
 36 "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?"
 37 And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."   (Lk. 10:26-37 NAU)

Inerrantist R. H. Stein says Jesus' teaching here requires Christian love to transcend natural and religious status:

10:33 But a Samaritan. The term “Samaritan” is in an emphatic position in the sentence. Jesus deliberately chose an outsider, and a hated one at that, for his hero in order to indicate that being a neighbor is not a matter of nationality or race. The mutual hatred of the Jews and the Samaritans is evident in such passages as John 4:9; 8:48... Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.So great was Jewish and Samaritan hostility that Jesus’ opponents could think of nothing worse to say of him than, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” (John 8:48; cf. also 4:9)...Jesus and Luke sought to illustrate that the love of one’s neighbor must transcend all natural or human boundaries such as race, nationality, religion, and economic or educational status.

Stein, R. H. (2001, c1992). Vol. 24: Luke (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;
The New American Commentary (Page 317-319).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers

Holding, being a fundy trapped in the very black and white thinking he trashes everybody else for, will trifle that I have "missed" the fact that this bitter enemy of the Jews showed a kindness to the disciple.

No, I haven't missed that.  I showed a kindness to Holding in suing him twice for libel, so I'm not really that much different from the otherwise hated Samaritan who similarly showed kindness to a Christian.

Some would argue that, given how utterly out-of-control Holding's mouth was at the time I filed the two lawsuits against him, my doing so was a kindness to him.  After all, he was genuinely guilty as charged (which is why he didn't dare attempt to seek dismissal on the merits), and I sought punitive damages in both cases, and the legal purpose of punitive damages includes deterrence and to educate:

The arguments for punitive damages have generally been delineated as these four: compensation, punishment and deterrence, revenge, and promotion of justice. Long, Punitive Damages: An Unsettled Doctrine, 25 Drake L. Rev. 870 (1976).   

In Florida, the rationale is that of punishment and deterrence: 

Punitive or exemplary damages are awarded as punishment to a defendant and as a warning and example to deter him and others from committing similar offenses in the future.

Barr v. InterbayCitizens Bank, 96 Wash. 2d 692 - Wash: Supreme Court 1981

citing Miami Beach Lerner Shops, Inc. v. Walco Mfg. of Fla., Inc., supra at 236.

While I am not a deadly threat to Holding, it isn't really that hard to figure out where some shit-talking fool lives.  See here.

That even Holding is aware his shit-talking campaign was likely to induce people to murder him is proven from the way he expressed his genuine fright that I would try to murder him in a courtroom, in an email to his lawyer that Holding didn't think would ever see the light of day, even though the only basis for his fear was my having filed the lawsuit against him (i.e., my anger over his shit-talking):

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?

From : Raphael

ΤΟ : jpholding

mossrose

One Bad Pig

Sparko

Date : 2015-10-O6 19:39

Title: Re: I think Bud wants to kill me!

[OUOTE=jpholding--|No, I'm serious. I thought about this last message he sent me where he says he wants to get me in front of jury if it's the last thing he does on earth. He's had this "thing" to debate me in person since 2008 and now trying to get me in a courtroom no matter what, even if there's arbitration???No way I'm getting in the same room with him unless he's sedated or under heavy guard. I knew inmates like this, worked in places with psych inmates and a mental health unit. And then there's the fact that his ex-wife had to put a domestic violence order on him.

 See the blog piece where I originally quoted these.

See also the last part of his email to Gary Habermas, where Holding says I'm a "crazy" similar to the dangerous psychos in a prison ward.

See also Holding's "Internet Predator Alert", where Holding himself falsely assumed, despite criticism and despite my own contrary clinical diagnosis showing no such tendency, that my borderline personality disorder made me dangerous.  Wisely, Holding, despite being the type of pretentious obsessive asshole that would never extend critics any mery, took this Alert down before the first lawsuit was dismissed.

Addendum, 8/18/2015: “Dangerous”
 Doscher denies that he is dangerous because of his mental instability. Once again, clinical sources disagree with his claim.
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3342993/“Individuals with borderline personality disorder are diagnostically and clinically characterized by self-harm behavior, as indicated by the criterion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision, “recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.” However, individuals with borderline personality disorder can display externalized aggressive behavior, as well. In an area characterized by considerably less research, empirical evidence indicates that individuals with borderline personality disorder may exhibit physical violence toward partners, physical violence toward known but nonintimate individuals, criminal behaviors that embody externalized violence (e.g., property damage), and, on very rare occasion, murderous behavior (either of family members or anonymous others through serial killing).”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2790397/

-------------

So it is reasonable to argue that in light of Holding doing his best to put himself on a deathlist, it was "loving" of me to attempt to get him to change his ways through a means that most mature civilized adults think is valid and possesses significant likelihood of deterring him from running off at the mouth.

Finally, Holding's black and white fundy view that Matthew 18 doesn't obligate Christians to rebuke other Christians for sins against unbelievers, is opposed by somebody who used to publicly endorse Holding, Dr. Craig Blomberg, who said, commentating in Matthew 18:

There are times, of course, when it is both appropriate and necessary to correct believers for sins affecting third parties, but this can easily turn into meddling.
Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 278). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The fact that Gary Habermas tactfully told Holding, in a conversation about my lawsuits,  he is glad Holding is allegedly backing off of the "strong comebacks" indicates that Habermas believed it was proper for him to address Holding about the language that landed Holding in Court, and that Habermas believed he didn't involve himself in this third-party dispute to the point of "meddling".

Maybe Holding will say Habermas is a "stupid moron" for thinking this way?

Craig Blomberg's commentary on Matthew 5 demolishes Holding's entire purpose of ministry:

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.'
 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
 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. 5:43-48 NAU)

Blomberg opines that these passages are requiring Christians to be loving and gentle toward those who mistreat them:

Almost all people look after their own. The true test of genuine Christianity is how believers treat those whom they are naturally inclined to hate or who mistreat or persecute them. Whatever emotions may be involved, “love” here refers to “generous, warm, costly self-sacrifice for another’s good.”52 “Greet” (v. 47) refers to more than a simple hello, namely, heartfelt “expressions of desire for the other person’s welfare.”53 People who so love and greet their enemies and pray for their persecutors thus prove themselves to be those, as in v. 9, who are growing in conformity to the likeness of their Heavenly Father (v. 45).

52 Carson, “Matthew,” 158.

53 R. H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 99.

Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 114).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

From Holding's utterly reactionary cartoon videos that appear to be the only way this internally conflicted clown can see any real-world fulfillment of his desire to get rid of me, it is clear that Holding thinks my blog exposing his immoralities and my libel lawsuits against him (which he says were frivolous) constitute "mistreating" him, and he never had any problem seeing "falsely accused" as "persecute" until he found out that such belief would require him to "love" me.

For all these reasons, it would appear that Matthew 18 obligates a Christian in the know to involve themselves in third-party disputes where another Christian has sinned against an unbeliever.



https://www.ligonier.org/blog/how-should-christians-respond-attacks-and-insults/