Just a few minutes ago, I clicked on each of Holding's YouTube Videos as shown below
Thursday, December 6, 2018
James Patrick Holding: abusing vulnerable people
Post date: December 6, 2017
Just a few minutes ago, I clicked on each of Holding's YouTube Videos as shown below
Just a few minutes ago, I clicked on each of Holding's YouTube Videos as shown below
More Christians also notice Holding's pathological need to insult critics
John Tors is a bible-believing Christian who has pastored churches and taught apologetics for more than 30 years. See here. His ministry includes many other good Christian people. See here.
James Patrick Holding criticized a few things Tor believes in, and Tors' reply documents and condemns Holding's....(you guessed it)...unnecessary resort to insult.
The point of the below is not merely to show that other Christian apologists find Holding equally as insulting and foul as I do (as if that needed any more documentation than I've already provided here).
The point is that Holding has a pathological inability to detach from the emotional issues and simply deal with the scholarly issues. Once again, he lives solely for a few anonymous nobodies who praise his every move and jump high with excitement at his cartoon videos wherein he only shows that he constantly fantazies about how much smarter and more significant he is than any of his critics.
Holding rteally fucked himself up by insulting Tors like this. Tors is a Christian believer.
I remember Holding in the past trying to duck his biblical obligations in Eph. 5:4 and Col. 3:8 to refrain from abusive filthy jesting and insult, by pretending that this was only talking about his duties toward other Christians.
Well gee, we find from his interaction with Tors that Holding's "interpretation" of those passages is nothing but dishonest subterfuge. The truth is clearly manifested by Holding's long ceaseless trail of besmirching even Christains who don't see things his way; Holding simply does not give a fuck about anything in the bible that might require him to tame his tongue. the solitary reason he bothers to "explain" anti-insult passages is because this is logically requires by his belief in bible inerrancy.
Sort of like the court judge who is sworn to uphold the law...but who in countless instances shows that despite his lofty claim, he shows by his works that he cares about only certain portions of the law.
See Tors' entire article here, highlights of which are as follows:
MARK 1:2 REVISITED:
A Response to James Patrick Holding
By John Tors | March 18, 2017 |
© 2017, by John Tors. All Rights Reserved.
INTRODUCTION I have elsewhere described the story of a certain contestant on the television game show “Jeopardy.”[1] He was doing very well, answering questions correctly one after the other, but then he missed an easy one about famous comedy teams. The correct answer was, “Who is Laurel and Hardy,” but he mistakenly said, “Who is Oliver and Hardy.” When the host, perhaps taken aback that a good contestant had missed such an easy question and did not immediately say it was wrong, the contestant glared at the host and repeated, more loudly and stridently this time, “Who is Oliver and Hardy?” The host then told him that answer was wrong. The lesson from this story ought to be clear: A wrong answer does not become right simply by being reasserted more loudly and more stridently. And it certainly does not become right simply by reasserting it is more loudly and stridently, while adding bald appeals to authority and levying puerile insults against those who give the right answer. It is a lesson that James Patrick Holding, the librarian who maintains his own apologetics website, Tektonics.org, has obviously not learned.[2] Claims are settled by actual facts, not by bald assertions, nor by insults.
...It is quite clear that Holding has offered nothing new here. Like the hapless Jeopardy contestant, he has simply repeated his discredited argument again, more stridently and more rudely, but it was vacuous before and it remains vacuous now.
...It is impossible, therefore, not to conclude that Holding is simply making stuff up out of whole cloth to maintain his view, and an apologist who does that has forfeited any right to be taken seriously. By anyone. Ever.
Holding should probably leave badly enough alone now, but he seems determined to bury himself, and proceeds to do so.
...But our librarian is not finished demonstrating his complete incompetence to deal with such issues. He says,
...It really isn’t necessary at this point for Holding to put another nail into his coffin, but he does so,
...APPENDIX: HOLDING’S INSULTS
The fact that Holding liberally sprinkled his response to our article with insults comes as no surprise. We have elsewhere commented on his vicious verbal attacks on Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Paige Patterson for rightly objecting to the idea of non-historical additions in the historical narratives of the Gospel books (and Dr. Patterson for having the temerity to agree with the Bible on the proper role for women in the church).[29] The sight of this academically underqualified apologist rudely attacking his betters is quite repugnant, but it certainly makes it inevitable that he would insult me. We may as well look at his insults and see if there is any substance to them.
“I was recently alerted to a rather pathetic attempt to respond to the above by a wannabe fundamentalist apologist named John Tors.”[30]
I will leave it to fair-minded readers of my original article, Holding’s response, and the current article to decide whose attempt is pathetic. I do not think they will agree with Holding about this. (And I certainly am an apologist, whether the librarian likes it or not.)
“After an insulting and rather bigoted description of the Jewish practice above as ‘bizarre’”[31]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “bizarre” means “very strange or unusual.”[32] Now, Holding is free to consider a practice in which, for example, “the Rabbis state that Hirah and Hiram are one man, and that he lived almost 1,200 years”[33] to be quotidian if he wishes, but I think most people would agree that it is bizarre, and that this is a fair description, and not “insulting.”
The librarian’s claim that it is “rather bigoted” is reprehensible, however. If a practice is bizarre, then it is bizarre regardless of who does it, whether Jew or Gentile. Describing it as such is therefore not “bigoted,” and to hint that I did so because it was a Jewish practice is shameful. On the other hand, to suggest that nothing done by any minority group should ever be described as “bizarre” no matter how bizarre it may be is sheer lunacy.
“Tors — who has no discernible credentials — arrogantly declares that myself and Sarna are wrong … a bare denial from a relative nobody like Tors, against a seasoned scholar like Sarna”[34]
I do not think academic training in Biblical studies is necessary to be an apologist (though I think knowledge of Koine Greek and Hebrew is extremely important) so I do not usually bring up such matters. However, since Holding has brought it up, I will point out that my academic qualifications for apologetics are rather better than his own. I hold a M.Div. (in addition to a B.A.Sc. in chemical engineering) and learned both Koine Greek and Hebrew at seminary.
Holding, on the other hand, has no relevant training; he describes his own qualifications thus: “I have a Masters’ Degree in Library Science. What the [sic] runs down to is, I’m trained in looking things up and answering questions.”[35] Alas, “looking things up” is not nearly enough; critical thinking about what one looks up, based on the proper view of the inerrant Bible, is what is needed from a serious apologist. (And, again, knowledge of the languages is certainly important.[36])
It is also passing strange that Holding should fault a “relative nobody” [sic] for challenging a “seasoned scholar” such as Sarna when our master of library science who can look up things himself not only challenges but foully insults Dr. Norman Geisler, B.A., M.A. (in theology), Th.B, Ph.D, author or editor of ninety-one books on Biblical topics, and accords the same treatment to Dr. Paige Patterson, B.A., Th.M, Ph.D. The hypocrisy of this librarian is truly breathtaking.
“Frankly, Tors should leave apologetics and scholarship to the professionals and cease embarrassing Christians with his poor answers.”[37]
I am not sure what Holding means by a “professional” apologist, but I do not see why a librarian with a website should be considered one. And inasmuch as his apologetic attempts have been shown to be risible, it seems clear that he is the one with the poor answers. But we will let the readers decide.
For more information about the nature and quality of Holding’s apologetics, please see our article “The Three-Headed Monster and the Evangelical Betrayal of the Bible: Exposing the Major Weapons Levied Against the Trustworthiness of the Bible (Part 2).”[38]
...As to your comments and those of JPH that have not been posted, as I said previously, “I generally do not post comments that have nothing of substance to say, as there is no point in doing so.” This ministry is for the edification of people serious about the Bible, and substance-free comments do not edify. I have posted those comments of yours that made a point. JPH’s comments, on the other hand, simply consist of bluster and insults, such as “What a fraud you are, Tors”; “You’re so easy to manipulate. That’s why you’re such a budding cult leader”; “Mouth-foaming assertion, claiming to have used ‘facts and logic’when all you did was make cr*p up”; “better reserve your seat on the apostasy train now”; “typical fundy shimmying”; “What shall we call you? The Cornball of Canada?” Do you really think I SHOULD post such material? The irony is that JPH does not realize how bad it makes him look, so I did him a favour by not posting them.
PETERS: “But of course, it’s more about your looking holy and taking the Bible seriously as the inerrant Word of God. As Francis Beckwith says, if they can’t win with logic, they’ll try to trump with spirituality.”Here Peters goes into a Holding pattern, resorting to impugning my motives, and asserting that I hold to the Bible as the inerrant word of God in order to look holy. Actually, I hold to the Bible as the inerrant word of God because that is what it is.
J. P. Holding says:
April 4, 2017 at 9:39 AM
No, Tors, you miss the point, which is that your bare denials of facts and claims made by reputable scholars isn’t an argument. It’s an admission that you don’t have an argument. There were examples given, and your “responses” did nothing but further expose your serious lack of education. That’s the way it is: You’ll twirl up some excuse no matter how cockamamie. Read Nichols’ The Death of Expertise. Your biography is in it. I bet this comment never sees light of day. You’re too scared to allow it.
John Tors says:
April 4, 2017 at 11:35 AM
I am not “scared” to allow your comment, JPH; I generally do not post comments that have nothing of substance to say, as there is no point in doing so. However, since you really seem to want yours posted, here it is. It should be noted that what your comment reveals is that the only response you can make to the case I put forth consists of nothing more than bald assertions, ad hominem attacks, and an appeal to accept uncritically the claims of “reputable scholars,” though it seems that only applies to those with whom you agree; as we saw in our article, all you have for scholars who dare to disagree with you is vituperative invective. And a word of advice; it is not a good idea to assert that “you don’t have an argument” when it is evident to any reader of my article that every point I made I argued, and that I did so by means of facts and logic. Accordingly, this assertion you made simply hurts your own credibility. If in the future you are able to offer substantive responses to my arguments, I would be happy to interact with them. But if all you have are more bald assertions, ad hominem attacks, and the appeal to follow uncritically JPH-approved scholars, there will be no point in expending effort on them.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Replies to Holding's idiot followers
I've used Isaiah 13:6-17 to show that God threatens to cause men to rape women:
Yeah, the long stare of a cartoon character is a legitimate reason to consider the argument valid.
Well first, we can be sure that "Victor Polk" doesn't have enough education to do the job, if his single fly-by-night post at my blog says anything about his level of mental acuity. That's right, Polk. Go google "acuity" and learn something new everyday, you frightened anonymous child.
Second, Holding needs to take a good long look in the mirror if he is going to condemn a person for hurling abusive epithets at a disabled person. He believes that I myself am mentally disabled, yet he talks shit about me as if he has no other purpose in life. He cannot say this "sweet young woman" doesn't go around asking for it, she does, and she did. She is known as "Christianbookworm" on theologyweb, and she helped Holding and others libel me like crazy there before I first sued Holding. Conveniently, that thread disappeared. The very first time she found out I clobbered Holding with his own scholars, she automatically decided it was a "screwball", and automatically assumed I was quoting sources out of context before she even know what she was dealing with.
Third, I did not know this woman was disabled at the time I called her a "bitch". If I had known she had some sort of mental disability, I probably wouldn't have even contacted her.
Fourth, Holding is even dumber than I thought, if he thinks I'd be the least bit worried about explaining my prior conduct to a jury. I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Who else but Holding is surprised when people act consistently with their nature?
Fifth, Holding is a shameless liar in saying I'm only going to sue his dead corporation because I fear suing him personally. I sued Holding personally twice. I obviously don't "fear" SHIT that this guy has to "personally" offer. There is nothing about Holding needing a lawyer, that would reduce his ability to confront me with my past on the witness stand, and a real lawyer would probably be able to do Holding's job better than Holding himself. Finally, there is nothing about Holding needing to hire a lawyer that would limit the amount of time he could keep me on the witness stand. If he thinks it legally viable to have me answer questions for three days, he can just tell his lawyer to argue such a point to the judge. Only Mr. Holding would be stupid enough to go online and talk about how his hiring a lawyer to represent him in court would hamper his ability to confront me. If it did, it would probably be because the lawyer thinks much of the crap Holding wants me to answer for, is more prejudicial than probative. That is, in a court of law, you are not allowed to just confront the other party with every bit of dirt you can possibly gather on them. The judge has to use FRE 104 and balance whatever probative effect the attack might have, with the obvious fact that too much can have an unfairly prejudicial effect. NEWSFLASH TO HOLDING: A JUDGE DOES NOT RUN A COURT OF LAW THE WAY YOU RUN YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
I almost couldn't paste that here...the obvious prioritizing of cartoons above Christ, was just soaking my demonic self in too much holy light for me to fight back against.
Since it is clear that nobody of any real substance gives two shits about Holding's ceaseless trifles about every Jerry Springer moment he can dredge up, I won't comment much more on such idiocy.
But for those followers of Holding who think the factual and legal arguments in my prior lawsuits were frivolous, put up or shut up. Since your weak spiritual warrior Holding won't do it, maybe you'll become a Pentecostal and decide there's more to spiritual progress than posting something on the internet?
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.I will be replying to Holding's criticism later. For now, let's have a look at the fruits exhibited by the people who normally post comments to his videos:
14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. (Isa. 13:13-18 NAU)
Yeah, the long stare of a cartoon character is a legitimate reason to consider the argument valid.
Well first, we can be sure that "Victor Polk" doesn't have enough education to do the job, if his single fly-by-night post at my blog says anything about his level of mental acuity. That's right, Polk. Go google "acuity" and learn something new everyday, you frightened anonymous child.
Second, Holding needs to take a good long look in the mirror if he is going to condemn a person for hurling abusive epithets at a disabled person. He believes that I myself am mentally disabled, yet he talks shit about me as if he has no other purpose in life. He cannot say this "sweet young woman" doesn't go around asking for it, she does, and she did. She is known as "Christianbookworm" on theologyweb, and she helped Holding and others libel me like crazy there before I first sued Holding. Conveniently, that thread disappeared. The very first time she found out I clobbered Holding with his own scholars, she automatically decided it was a "screwball", and automatically assumed I was quoting sources out of context before she even know what she was dealing with.
Third, I did not know this woman was disabled at the time I called her a "bitch". If I had known she had some sort of mental disability, I probably wouldn't have even contacted her.
Fourth, Holding is even dumber than I thought, if he thinks I'd be the least bit worried about explaining my prior conduct to a jury. I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Who else but Holding is surprised when people act consistently with their nature?
Fifth, Holding is a shameless liar in saying I'm only going to sue his dead corporation because I fear suing him personally. I sued Holding personally twice. I obviously don't "fear" SHIT that this guy has to "personally" offer. There is nothing about Holding needing a lawyer, that would reduce his ability to confront me with my past on the witness stand, and a real lawyer would probably be able to do Holding's job better than Holding himself. Finally, there is nothing about Holding needing to hire a lawyer that would limit the amount of time he could keep me on the witness stand. If he thinks it legally viable to have me answer questions for three days, he can just tell his lawyer to argue such a point to the judge. Only Mr. Holding would be stupid enough to go online and talk about how his hiring a lawyer to represent him in court would hamper his ability to confront me. If it did, it would probably be because the lawyer thinks much of the crap Holding wants me to answer for, is more prejudicial than probative. That is, in a court of law, you are not allowed to just confront the other party with every bit of dirt you can possibly gather on them. The judge has to use FRE 104 and balance whatever probative effect the attack might have, with the obvious fact that too much can have an unfairly prejudicial effect. NEWSFLASH TO HOLDING: A JUDGE DOES NOT RUN A COURT OF LAW THE WAY YOU RUN YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
I almost couldn't paste that here...the obvious prioritizing of cartoons above Christ, was just soaking my demonic self in too much holy light for me to fight back against.
Since it is clear that nobody of any real substance gives two shits about Holding's ceaseless trifles about every Jerry Springer moment he can dredge up, I won't comment much more on such idiocy.
But for those followers of Holding who think the factual and legal arguments in my prior lawsuits were frivolous, put up or shut up. Since your weak spiritual warrior Holding won't do it, maybe you'll become a Pentecostal and decide there's more to spiritual progress than posting something on the internet?
James Patrick Holding's shocking stupidity on Mark's ending
This is my reply to a video by James Patrick Holding entitled
In the past I have argued the reasonableness of denying Jesus rose from the dead, in part, on the following facts:
a) The Christian scholarly consensus says Mark was the earliest gospel
b) The Christian scholarly consensus says Mark's long-ending, 16:9-20, wasn't part of the original,
c) so it is reasonable to conclude the earliest gospel did not say anybody actually saw a risen Jesus.
d) if Mark's original ending did mention Jesus' resurrection appearances, it wouldn't matter, since such a thing cannot be demonstrated to be a historical likelihood.
I further justified skepticism toward Mark's gospel by a quotation from Eusebius, to the effect that when Peter heard that Mark was writing a gospel, Peter neither forbade it nor encouraged it. I argued that one reasonable conclusion to Peter's apathy toward Mark's written gospel was that Peter didn't approve of Mark's literary effort.
For starters, as usual, Holding's bloated ego comes shining through in this video. He presents himself as a policeman who is physically larger and imposing, while often hovering over the smaller dischevled bum who is supposed to represent me. Holding is a pathetically conflicted clown: he always backs away from live one-on-one debates (but will compromise his divinely-inspired morals on that if the price is right, as was the case with his live debate against Carrier), but cannot shake the need to show the world how forcefully he can beat back atheist opposition. So it is by means of him drawing cartoons portraying himself as the sinister powerful intellectual, and his critics as retarded weak bums, that he fulfills this fantasy that will never actually become reality.
Holding, why didn't you call Habermas a "moron" and otherwise talk down to him the way you talk down the Context Group members, when Habermas told you he was glad you were backing off of the "strong comebacks"? After all, that sounds like Habermas agrees with all other Christian scholars that there is no biblical license for Christians to insult their critics. If that's a stupid moronic position to take, then why didn't you tell Habermas he was a stupid moron?
Worse, Holding's cartoon fantasies of steamrolling me with his great intellect and size as I cower before him are in total contradiction to his 2015 testimony to his lawyers that he was genuinely frightened I'd try to kill him, which I documented in another post, see here.
Holding cannot say that he talks so big now because over the last three years he learned that I wasn't such a threat, because that then means he was lying about me in 2015 when saying I was dangerously mentally ill.
So if Holding wishes to sound consistent, he must admit that he is still afraid I am dangerously mentally ill enough to try to kill him. So his brood of followers might like to ask: Do you think it makes sense to post so many insulting, degrading and defamatory things on the internet about a person whom you are afraid might actually try to kill you...especially given that you know that he keeps up on your videos and posts?
The normal person would know what it means to taunt a dangerously mentally ill person, and would likely not do it. But Holding is not normal. His pathological obsession with needing to justify himself to his follows is so strong, it even causes him to violate common sense. But it sure is consistent with his long history of acting like an inconsistent attention-deficit child.
Anyway...Starting a time-code 1:20, Holding informs the viewer that my argument "begs the question of Markan priority".
That's rather stupid. If Holding believes Jesus rose from the dead, is he "begging the question" of biblical reliability? No, "begging the question" is a "fallacy". If Holding has previously provided arguments to justify trusting the biblical story of Jesus' resurrection, then his reliance on that prior conclusion is not "begging the question", even if his arguments for bible reliability are incorrect or weak.
It is the same in my case. Yes, I've done a lot of research into the question of Markan priority. Yes, I accept Markan priority as a better theory that a theory that says Matthew or Luke came first. My assuming Markan priority is a mere reliance on my prior research and its conclusions. For that to be "fallacious" would render ALL argument fallacious, since most arguments contain premises whose truth the speaker has already decided are true. Holding is free to say my presuppositions are wrong, but he cannot blame me for relying on those. Everybody is relying on prior presuppositions when drawing conclusions and arguing.
It is only when they have not previously justified a premise, that their assumption of its truth constitutes "begging the question".
Holding then says I cannot maintain my view without answering numerous important text-critical questions.
First, Holding is dishonest, as it is clear that he conjured up this video after reading my blog post where I go into an important text-critical question on Mark 16:8. See here. In prior blog pieces, such as the one where I rebut the views of Jonathan McLatchie, I took on other text-critical issues of Mark's long ending and quoted conservative Christian scholars who opine that Mark intended to end at 16:8, for example, Daniel Wallace. See Rebuttal to Jonathan McLatchie's best evidence for the resurrection of Jesus .
I also attacked J. Warner Wallace's arguments for Petrine influence on Mark's gospel, which, if my attack is strong, would change any resurrection appearances in Mark from first-hand Petrine source to either "unknown provenance" or "hearsay at an unknown level of remove from the event". Historians and courts agree that there is a presumed great difference of quality between eyewitness sources and hearsay sources. So my attack would justify viewing Mark's long ending with suspicion even assuming the resurrection appearances therein were what Mark himself wrote.
So Holding is either dishonest for knowing I took on some text-critical issues on my blog and yet pretending that my view of Mark 16:8 ignores those questions, or Holding is more incompetent in research than he wants the world to believe, since it take very little brain power to search google for "turchisrong" and "Mark 16:8".
Second, I've reviewed the relevant literature, including the best efforts of James Snapp, Nick Lunn and others. I found none of their arguments compelling. Unfortunately for Holding, I am like other aspiring authors...I don't just dump all of my best stuff onto the internet for free just because I can. If Holding doesn't want his own books to be copied into pdf and pirated around the internet, then apparently he agrees with me that if you come up with good arguments and wish to put them in a for-profit book, it is reasonable and rational to decide that you shouldn't put the book's contents on the internet for free. And it wouldn't matter if Holding says he doesn't care whether people pirate his published books or not...most authors are reasonable to not want their book material being given away for free on the internet.
Holding is free to say I got something wrong in disagreeing with the conclusions of those who advocate for Mark's long ending, but he is simply being the asshole he's always been by pretending that because I didn't justify my conclusion with a 5-mile long blog post that answers every possible objection, that I'm thus "ignoring" things and "begging the question".
Well gee, Holding leaves an awful lot of scholarship untouched in his own video...should I accuse him of "begging the question" because he doesn't, right there in the video, justify all the presuppositions that hold up his conclusions?
at 1:36, he again says the first begged question is Markan priority, because he will show the viewer later that Matthew came first. So Holding can hardly fault me for not justifying all of my presuppositions in a single article, when he himself is perfectly content to leave a presupposition of his own without argument and merely promise to provide argument later
at 1:44, Holding then says the other begged question is that Mark ended at 16:8 and Holding will show there are "many" considerations showing that it didn't.
And again we see Holding's dog-shit attitude..about as often as we see trees. He cannot dare to tell himself that I might have already reviewed the arguments of N.T. Wright, Snapp, Lunn, and others who try to argue that Mark surely wrote something after 16:8, and that I simply haven't posted much of my reasons for disagreeing with them. No, Holding has to pretend that my reasons don't exist because I haven't already posted them somewhere. And people wonder why I call him a high-strung pretentious cocksucker?
Then proof of Holding's characteristically superficial "scholarship" shines through. At 1:52 ff, he lists those considerations in conclusory fashion, no scholar quotes and no argument. That's right holding. If you make a bulleted list of "considerations" that lacks scholarly support or argumentation, the reasonable reader has no choice but to conclude that God hath spoken. FUCK YOU.
Also, the most complete treatment of the issues was done, ironically, not by a Christian, but by atheist and committed anti-Christian Richard Carrier, Ph.d, Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication
This is more than sufficient to show that Holding is rather childish in this video, pretending that the issues are simple and can be resolved with little more than his bulleted lists and assurances that he'll get around to making some arguments later.
For now, Holding's dog-shit attitude makes it seem as if my view that Mark originally ended at 16:8 was just crazy stupid, which must then mean that legitimately credentialed Christian scholars whose qualifications are light years beyond those of Holding, are also crazy stupid, which of course, is consistent with Holding's 20-year long history of besmirching anybody, including other Christians, who won't back down from his cocky bravura.
In other words, Daniel Wallace and Craig Blomberg, who in the past once publicly endorsed some of Holding's work, are crazy stupid because they don't think anything in Mark 16:9-20 is authentic. Wallace says:
And Holding must think J. A. Brooks, an inerrantist Christian scholar, is crazy stupid:
Holding's first "consideration" is
No, the gospel ending at 16:8 means it ends on the laudatory note that Jesus has risen, this is proclaimed by an angel to some women, who then rush in reverential awe to repeat the good news to the disciples (that's right, I'm an atheist bible critic, but i don't jump onto the "the women said nothing" as if that's all that was meant. It's pretty clear Mark intended the reader to infer that the women were overly excited in reverential awe, and maintained silence only until they got back to the disciples). So ending at 16:8 is not ending on a sour note but a "good news" note.
It is only one's lifetime familiarity with the "better" endings from the other three gospels, that cause the modern Christians to automatically assume Mark would likely have intended to convey a similar level of detail.
Holding's second consideration is
Holding doesn't give the reader the Greek, which tells us what kind of audience he is expecting will view the video. Apparently, he is only expecting newbie Christians who know nearly nothing about the issue, and who therefore are more likely to mistake entertaining cartoons and unsupported assertions about social realities of the ancient world, for actual evidence. Mark 16:8 looks like this in the Greek:
8 Καὶ ἐξελθοῦσαι ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἶχεν γὰρ αὐτὰς τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις· καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν· ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ. (Mk. 16:8 NA28, BNT)
In other words, under my theory, Mark would end with "γάρ", which is not "yap", but "gar".
But scholars have found non-biblical examples of works that ended in "gar", and inerrantist Christian scholar Brooks considers this to justify somewhat the notion that Mark ended like that:
Holding's next consideration is
Feel free to infer that the disciples went and saw Jesus in Galilee. Not only do I not see how "they went and saw Jesus in Galilee" is sufficiently probative as to intellectually compel the reader to view the statement as strong historical evidence, but that inference gets you in more trouble, since that's all you can legitimately infer from the prior internal evidence, since Mark 14:28 says as much, but nothing more.
Which requires the conclusion that Mark didn't say anything about the specifics of what the risen Christ said or did...after writing a lengthy biography of all that the pre-resurrection Jesus said and did.
Sorry, but Mark's strong interest in what Jesus said and did, makes it virtually certain that IF he knew anything specific about what the risen-Jesus said and did, he surely would have mentioned at least some of it. That implies Mark did not know any such specifics...or that if he did, he did not consider any such details to be historically reliable.
Sure, you can always continue to mistake your trifles for substantive argument, and pretend that Mark's silence on the specifics of the words of the risen Christi might imply something pro-Christian, but it's hard to say what.
So Mark's silence on the specifics would shit-can whatever benefit you think you get when we allow that he wrote "the disciples saw Jesus in Galilee". And Mark's failure to provide specifics on the risen Christ is a silence that screams if we assume he and his requesting church were as fanatically excited about such details as today's apologists are. "The disciples saw Jesus in Galilee" would be a laudatory ending, even if it wasn't as richly detailed as the later gospel versions.
Holding's next consideration is
And I see no problem with the conservative belief that the traditions in Mark 16 go back equally as early as the conservative think the 1st Cor. 15 traditions do, in which case Mark's silence about specific resurrection-appearances continues to be early and thus an objective reason to be suspicious that the traditions are ambiguous and confused.
Or would you ask the judge to dismiss the charges since it is not possible for any reasonable jury to give the least bit of credit to such delusion?
I could go on and on but I have to make my own subjective decision about how far to push a presuppositional point.
Holding's next argument is:
My gosh, when did Holding first read Josh McDowell's ETDAV? Yesterday?
Yes, Holding, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. But then again, if the tooth fairy actually didn't exist, an absence of evidence is what you'd reasonably expect to find. So you cannot write off absences of evidence and pretend that the alternative explanation is always more reasonable. Worse, Mark's not saying anything about the specifics of the risen Christ's words and deeds, is a silence that screams, it is not what we'd expect given his strong interest in the pre-resurrection Jesus. And yes, the argument from silence is forceful when the silence is unexpected:
At time-code 2:18 ff, Holding has me state the general rule of textual criticism that the shorter reading is preferred because the tendency of later scribes was usually to make the existing text more understandable through expansions. That is, the very fact that Mark's shorter ending sounds so abrupt and unexpected and apparently textually justified in the eyes of the majority of conservative Christian scholars, is precisely the reason we should say that's what the author intended, since a longer version of the ending is slightly ore likely to be a mere scribal interpolation.
Holding responds that the issue is not Mark having a shorter ending but Mark's longer ending being "lost".
Well sorry Holding, but conservative inerrantist Christian textual scholar Daniel Wallace and other scholars think Mark intended to end at 16:8. See Daniel Wallace, "Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel" in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark, supra.
I do not cite that reference to "prove" anything. I only cite it to show that Holding is a liar, and that the problem of Mark's ending is not limited to the issue of how the ending became "lost" , but includes legitimately arguable points that Mark intended to end at 16:8. Holding is guilty of misleading his readers by pretending that the issues are more simple than they really are.
Holding then has me quoting Eusebius (showing he is responding to my blog and nobody else), who said when Peter learned of Mark's literary endeavor, Peter neither directly forbade it nor encouraged it, from which I conclude that Peter's supporting Mark's writing of a gospel is far less supported from the ancient sources than apologists usually preach.
Holding replies that Peter's apathy would be expected in an pre-literate society where oral preaching was the preferred method of obtaining information.
But Eusebius, in book 2, ch. 25, also gives a contradictory version of the tradition, and says when Peter heard of Mark's literary endeavor, Peter rejoiced at it:
Since Holding always holds a gun to his own head, ready to kill himself should there be any genuine contradiction between any two statements arising from the bible or church history, let's make the job easier for him:
It doesn't matter how Holding "harmonizes" these two accounts: He doesn't know whether these traditions are referring to a single event, and one account is simply wrong; or if these two accounts are referring to Peter's reaction on two separate occasions. If he chooses to harmonize them, then we have to ask why Holding was so quick to assume Peter's preference for oral tradition, when another sources shows just the opposite about Peter. Of course, the sources don't give that many details, and Holding doesn't even know if any of this bullshit is even true, but Holding will pretend that his speculative harmonization of these questionable sources will be as obviously true as the existence of trees. He writes for childish types who automatically equate cocky confidence with spiritual maturity.
Holding goes on to say
In other words, when Peter learned by a revelation of the Spirit that Mark was putting Peter's preaching in written form, Peter believed that writing things down reduced a reliance on memory and thought this impacted the quality of learning.
In other words, Holding doesn't think the books in the bible were written by "people of the biblical world".
Well that wasn't Peter's reaction according to the alternative tradition from Eusebius book 2, ch. 15.
And you actually don't know for sure that Peter's apathy toward Mark's written effort was for that reason. Another equally reasonable possibility is that Peter found something wrong with Mark's version, or the report he heard about this literary effort said things Peter didn't approve of, etc, etc. Yet Holding argues as if the one possibility he chooses to defend is the only possibility that any reasonable person would choose. It is factually true to say that Holding is a confirmed and genuine egomaniac, which is apparently only news to his followers, nobody else.
And I have good reason to believe that if Holding had known about that secondary form of the Eusebius tradition on Peter before you created this video, you probably wouldn't have stuffed your foot all the way down your throat the way you did. Now tell yourself that god thinks it important that you post endless reply videos to YouTube.
For all these reasons, Holding's attempted arguments in that video are total shit, he has done NOTHING to disturb the arguments upon which my skepticism of Mark's resurrection account hinge.
I am also quite aware that Holding doesn't have much influence with too many people of any significance, which means I might be dignifying a retard simply by taking the time to respond to his videos.
There will be times in the future when I do not respond to something Holding argued, because I don't think it deserves a response. But if anybody notifies me that they would like to see my response, then I'll respond.
In the past I have argued the reasonableness of denying Jesus rose from the dead, in part, on the following facts:
a) The Christian scholarly consensus says Mark was the earliest gospel
b) The Christian scholarly consensus says Mark's long-ending, 16:9-20, wasn't part of the original,
c) so it is reasonable to conclude the earliest gospel did not say anybody actually saw a risen Jesus.
d) if Mark's original ending did mention Jesus' resurrection appearances, it wouldn't matter, since such a thing cannot be demonstrated to be a historical likelihood.
I further justified skepticism toward Mark's gospel by a quotation from Eusebius, to the effect that when Peter heard that Mark was writing a gospel, Peter neither forbade it nor encouraged it. I argued that one reasonable conclusion to Peter's apathy toward Mark's written gospel was that Peter didn't approve of Mark's literary effort.
For starters, as usual, Holding's bloated ego comes shining through in this video. He presents himself as a policeman who is physically larger and imposing, while often hovering over the smaller dischevled bum who is supposed to represent me. Holding is a pathetically conflicted clown: he always backs away from live one-on-one debates (but will compromise his divinely-inspired morals on that if the price is right, as was the case with his live debate against Carrier), but cannot shake the need to show the world how forcefully he can beat back atheist opposition. So it is by means of him drawing cartoons portraying himself as the sinister powerful intellectual, and his critics as retarded weak bums, that he fulfills this fantasy that will never actually become reality.
Holding, why didn't you call Habermas a "moron" and otherwise talk down to him the way you talk down the Context Group members, when Habermas told you he was glad you were backing off of the "strong comebacks"? After all, that sounds like Habermas agrees with all other Christian scholars that there is no biblical license for Christians to insult their critics. If that's a stupid moronic position to take, then why didn't you tell Habermas he was a stupid moron?
Worse, Holding's cartoon fantasies of steamrolling me with his great intellect and size as I cower before him are in total contradiction to his 2015 testimony to his lawyers that he was genuinely frightened I'd try to kill him, which I documented in another post, see here.
Holding cannot say that he talks so big now because over the last three years he learned that I wasn't such a threat, because that then means he was lying about me in 2015 when saying I was dangerously mentally ill.
So if Holding wishes to sound consistent, he must admit that he is still afraid I am dangerously mentally ill enough to try to kill him. So his brood of followers might like to ask: Do you think it makes sense to post so many insulting, degrading and defamatory things on the internet about a person whom you are afraid might actually try to kill you...especially given that you know that he keeps up on your videos and posts?
The normal person would know what it means to taunt a dangerously mentally ill person, and would likely not do it. But Holding is not normal. His pathological obsession with needing to justify himself to his follows is so strong, it even causes him to violate common sense. But it sure is consistent with his long history of acting like an inconsistent attention-deficit child.
Anyway...Starting a time-code 1:20, Holding informs the viewer that my argument "begs the question of Markan priority".
That's rather stupid. If Holding believes Jesus rose from the dead, is he "begging the question" of biblical reliability? No, "begging the question" is a "fallacy". If Holding has previously provided arguments to justify trusting the biblical story of Jesus' resurrection, then his reliance on that prior conclusion is not "begging the question", even if his arguments for bible reliability are incorrect or weak.
It is the same in my case. Yes, I've done a lot of research into the question of Markan priority. Yes, I accept Markan priority as a better theory that a theory that says Matthew or Luke came first. My assuming Markan priority is a mere reliance on my prior research and its conclusions. For that to be "fallacious" would render ALL argument fallacious, since most arguments contain premises whose truth the speaker has already decided are true. Holding is free to say my presuppositions are wrong, but he cannot blame me for relying on those. Everybody is relying on prior presuppositions when drawing conclusions and arguing.
It is only when they have not previously justified a premise, that their assumption of its truth constitutes "begging the question".
Holding then says I cannot maintain my view without answering numerous important text-critical questions.
First, Holding is dishonest, as it is clear that he conjured up this video after reading my blog post where I go into an important text-critical question on Mark 16:8. See here. In prior blog pieces, such as the one where I rebut the views of Jonathan McLatchie, I took on other text-critical issues of Mark's long ending and quoted conservative Christian scholars who opine that Mark intended to end at 16:8, for example, Daniel Wallace. See Rebuttal to Jonathan McLatchie's best evidence for the resurrection of Jesus .
I also attacked J. Warner Wallace's arguments for Petrine influence on Mark's gospel, which, if my attack is strong, would change any resurrection appearances in Mark from first-hand Petrine source to either "unknown provenance" or "hearsay at an unknown level of remove from the event". Historians and courts agree that there is a presumed great difference of quality between eyewitness sources and hearsay sources. So my attack would justify viewing Mark's long ending with suspicion even assuming the resurrection appearances therein were what Mark himself wrote.
So Holding is either dishonest for knowing I took on some text-critical issues on my blog and yet pretending that my view of Mark 16:8 ignores those questions, or Holding is more incompetent in research than he wants the world to believe, since it take very little brain power to search google for "turchisrong" and "Mark 16:8".
Second, I've reviewed the relevant literature, including the best efforts of James Snapp, Nick Lunn and others. I found none of their arguments compelling. Unfortunately for Holding, I am like other aspiring authors...I don't just dump all of my best stuff onto the internet for free just because I can. If Holding doesn't want his own books to be copied into pdf and pirated around the internet, then apparently he agrees with me that if you come up with good arguments and wish to put them in a for-profit book, it is reasonable and rational to decide that you shouldn't put the book's contents on the internet for free. And it wouldn't matter if Holding says he doesn't care whether people pirate his published books or not...most authors are reasonable to not want their book material being given away for free on the internet.
Holding is free to say I got something wrong in disagreeing with the conclusions of those who advocate for Mark's long ending, but he is simply being the asshole he's always been by pretending that because I didn't justify my conclusion with a 5-mile long blog post that answers every possible objection, that I'm thus "ignoring" things and "begging the question".
Well gee, Holding leaves an awful lot of scholarship untouched in his own video...should I accuse him of "begging the question" because he doesn't, right there in the video, justify all the presuppositions that hold up his conclusions?
at 1:36, he again says the first begged question is Markan priority, because he will show the viewer later that Matthew came first. So Holding can hardly fault me for not justifying all of my presuppositions in a single article, when he himself is perfectly content to leave a presupposition of his own without argument and merely promise to provide argument later
at 1:44, Holding then says the other begged question is that Mark ended at 16:8 and Holding will show there are "many" considerations showing that it didn't.
And again we see Holding's dog-shit attitude..about as often as we see trees. He cannot dare to tell himself that I might have already reviewed the arguments of N.T. Wright, Snapp, Lunn, and others who try to argue that Mark surely wrote something after 16:8, and that I simply haven't posted much of my reasons for disagreeing with them. No, Holding has to pretend that my reasons don't exist because I haven't already posted them somewhere. And people wonder why I call him a high-strung pretentious cocksucker?
Then proof of Holding's characteristically superficial "scholarship" shines through. At 1:52 ff, he lists those considerations in conclusory fashion, no scholar quotes and no argument. That's right holding. If you make a bulleted list of "considerations" that lacks scholarly support or argumentation, the reasonable reader has no choice but to conclude that God hath spoken. FUCK YOU.
For the reader unfamiliar with this stuff, I would suggest Perspectives on the Ending of Mark, Maurice Robinson, Darrell Bock, Keith Elliott, Daniel Wallace (B&H Publishing 2008)
Literary Approaches To The End Of Mark’s Gospel
Literary Approaches To The End Of Mark’s Gospel
Also, the most complete treatment of the issues was done, ironically, not by a Christian, but by atheist and committed anti-Christian Richard Carrier, Ph.d, Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication
This is more than sufficient to show that Holding is rather childish in this video, pretending that the issues are simple and can be resolved with little more than his bulleted lists and assurances that he'll get around to making some arguments later.
For now, Holding's dog-shit attitude makes it seem as if my view that Mark originally ended at 16:8 was just crazy stupid, which must then mean that legitimately credentialed Christian scholars whose qualifications are light years beyond those of Holding, are also crazy stupid, which of course, is consistent with Holding's 20-year long history of besmirching anybody, including other Christians, who won't back down from his cocky bravura.
In other words, Daniel Wallace and Craig Blomberg, who in the past once publicly endorsed some of Holding's work, are crazy stupid because they don't think anything in Mark 16:9-20 is authentic. Wallace says:
He [Blomberg] then discusses the two major textual problems that Ehrman zeroes in on: Mark 16.9–20 and John 7.53–8.11. He makes the insightful comment that the probable inauthenticity of these passages is news to laypeople because they tend not to read the marginal notes in their Bibles and because “more and more people are reading the Bible in electronic form, and many electronic versions of the Bible don’t even include such notes” (15).See here.
And Holding must think J. A. Brooks, an inerrantist Christian scholar, is crazy stupid:
Likewise, Holding must think Metzger, otherwise the "goto" textual scholar for fundamentalist Christians, is crazy stupid:If, however, internal evidence is considered, the decision is overwhelmingly in favor of ending at v. 8...It is virtually certain that Mark wrote nothing after v. 8, i.e., he did not write the long ending (vv. 9–20) or the short ending.
(3) The traditional ending of Mark, so familiar through the AV and other translations of the Textus Receptus, is present in the vast number of witnesses…
The longer ending (3), though current in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary.
(Textual Commentary, 2nd ed. 5th printing, 1994). See also here.
Holding's first "consideration" is
"it would be an abrupt and inappropriate ending for a laudatory biography".Well gee, should I accuse Holding of begging the question because he didn't supply argument to support that premise right then and there?
No, the gospel ending at 16:8 means it ends on the laudatory note that Jesus has risen, this is proclaimed by an angel to some women, who then rush in reverential awe to repeat the good news to the disciples (that's right, I'm an atheist bible critic, but i don't jump onto the "the women said nothing" as if that's all that was meant. It's pretty clear Mark intended the reader to infer that the women were overly excited in reverential awe, and maintained silence only until they got back to the disciples). So ending at 16:8 is not ending on a sour note but a "good news" note.
It is only one's lifetime familiarity with the "better" endings from the other three gospels, that cause the modern Christians to automatically assume Mark would likely have intended to convey a similar level of detail.
Holding's second consideration is
"it would end with a word similar to our "because" or "for"Well gee, should I accuse Holding of begging the question because he didn't supply argument to support that premise right then and there?
Holding doesn't give the reader the Greek, which tells us what kind of audience he is expecting will view the video. Apparently, he is only expecting newbie Christians who know nearly nothing about the issue, and who therefore are more likely to mistake entertaining cartoons and unsupported assertions about social realities of the ancient world, for actual evidence. Mark 16:8 looks like this in the Greek:
8 Καὶ ἐξελθοῦσαι ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἶχεν γὰρ αὐτὰς τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις· καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν· ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ. (Mk. 16:8 NA28, BNT)
In other words, under my theory, Mark would end with "γάρ", which is not "yap", but "gar".
But scholars have found non-biblical examples of works that ended in "gar", and inerrantist Christian scholar Brooks considers this to justify somewhat the notion that Mark ended like that:
Holding will of course say that Mark "intended" to write more, but I don't suspect he recognizes how the historiography shifts. At that point, the historical evidence would not be direct but inferential. It hardly needs arguing that inferential evidence is more subject to ambiguity than direct evidence. Such conjectures would necessarily have less probative force than actual tangible Markan text.Some considerations would seem to indicate that Mark did not intend to end with v. 8. It seems inappropriate to end a book or even a sentence with a conjunction (the conjunction gar, translated “because” in the NIV, is the last word in the Greek text). It seems inappropriate to end a Gospel—an account of the good news—on a note of fear and without appearances in Galilee, especially to Peter.None of the above considerations is decisive, however. Various examples have been collected of sentences ending with gar, including John 13:13. One probable and several possible examples of books ending with gar exist.5 The fear may not be natural fright but religious awe...
Holding's next consideration is
Mark builds up an anticipation for appearance in GalileeWell gee, should I accuse Holding of begging the question because he didn't supply argument to support that premise right then and there?
Feel free to infer that the disciples went and saw Jesus in Galilee. Not only do I not see how "they went and saw Jesus in Galilee" is sufficiently probative as to intellectually compel the reader to view the statement as strong historical evidence, but that inference gets you in more trouble, since that's all you can legitimately infer from the prior internal evidence, since Mark 14:28 says as much, but nothing more.
Which requires the conclusion that Mark didn't say anything about the specifics of what the risen Christ said or did...after writing a lengthy biography of all that the pre-resurrection Jesus said and did.
Sorry, but Mark's strong interest in what Jesus said and did, makes it virtually certain that IF he knew anything specific about what the risen-Jesus said and did, he surely would have mentioned at least some of it. That implies Mark did not know any such specifics...or that if he did, he did not consider any such details to be historically reliable.
Sure, you can always continue to mistake your trifles for substantive argument, and pretend that Mark's silence on the specifics of the words of the risen Christi might imply something pro-Christian, but it's hard to say what.
So Mark's silence on the specifics would shit-can whatever benefit you think you get when we allow that he wrote "the disciples saw Jesus in Galilee". And Mark's failure to provide specifics on the risen Christ is a silence that screams if we assume he and his requesting church were as fanatically excited about such details as today's apologists are. "The disciples saw Jesus in Galilee" would be a laudatory ending, even if it wasn't as richly detailed as the later gospel versions.
Holding's next consideration is
Resurrection appearances were shown to be part of the tradition in Paul (1 Cor. 15).Well gee, should I accuse Holding of begging the question because he didn't supply argument to support that premise right then and there? Problems with that "creed":
- Paul is low on credibility in general and specifically regarding his lies about being received favorably by the other apostles. If he loses on general credibility, there's no rule of reasonableness that says I have to stick around and trifle about things he said that might have been true. But the argument against Paul's credibility is so complex that sufficiently documenting it here would sidetrack from the goal of refuting Holding's specific points.
- Holding's harmonizations between this "creed" and the canonical gospel resurrection narratives are not convincing to anybody except weak-minded Christians whose assumption of inerrancy causes them to mistake "possible" for "likely" whenever it will help them feel better.
- Licona (223) thinks Paul wrote 1 Cor. about 25 years after Jesus died, and since false rumors about apostles could and did spring up within their own lifetimes (Acts 21:18-24), I'm perfectly reasonable to say that 25 years is one hell of a long time for false rumors and legends to modify historical truth.
- Nobody pushes the creed all the way back to the 3rd day after Jesus died. They usually place it a few years after Jesus died. Habermas says:
Paul probably received this report from Peter and James while visiting Jerusalem within a few years of his conversion.[46] The vast majority of critical scholars who answer the question place Paul’s reception of this material in the mid-30s A.D.
And I see no problem with the conservative belief that the traditions in Mark 16 go back equally as early as the conservative think the 1st Cor. 15 traditions do, in which case Mark's silence about specific resurrection-appearances continues to be early and thus an objective reason to be suspicious that the traditions are ambiguous and confused.
- When Paul in Gal. 1:12 denies receiving the gospel from any human agency and relegates it solely to divine telepathy, he uses the same Greek word that he uses in 1st Cor. 15:3: παραλαμβάνω/paralambano. It doesn't matter if Holding can show a possible way to reconcile these statements: Holding doesn't know exactly what bits of Paul's gospel knowledge came from telepathy and came from stories he heard from others. Holding's "harmonizing" these two Pauline statements is not ever going to be any more reasonable than the skeptical theory that says Paul could have gotten the resurrection appearance stories straight from invisible sky people.
- I am not unreasonable when I consider Paul's uncorroborated statements to be fully lacking in credibility because of what he alleges in 2nd Cor. 12:1-4, wherein he admits that even 14 years after the fact he still doesn't know whether his floating into the sky and seeing heaven was done spiritually or physically. If somebody THIS stoned on drugs was the prosecution's witness against you in a murder trial, how would you react when he said he flew to heaven and god at that time showed him a vision of you pulling the trigger?
Or would you ask the judge to dismiss the charges since it is not possible for any reasonable jury to give the least bit of credit to such delusion?
I could go on and on but I have to make my own subjective decision about how far to push a presuppositional point.
Holding's next argument is:
My gosh, when did Holding first read Josh McDowell's ETDAV? Yesterday?
Yes, Holding, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. But then again, if the tooth fairy actually didn't exist, an absence of evidence is what you'd reasonably expect to find. So you cannot write off absences of evidence and pretend that the alternative explanation is always more reasonable. Worse, Mark's not saying anything about the specifics of the risen Christ's words and deeds, is a silence that screams, it is not what we'd expect given his strong interest in the pre-resurrection Jesus. And yes, the argument from silence is forceful when the silence is unexpected:
"A failure to assert a fact, when it would have been natural to assert it, amounts in effect to an assertion of the non-existence of the fact."Would it have been "natural" for Mark, had he really been Peter's companion, to mention everything or nearly everything Peter told him about the words and deeds of the risen Christ? Yes, obviously. You aren't going to suppose Peter kept silent toward Mark or anybody else about such appearances, so you are stuck with a silence that screams. Sort of like a book entitled "Sex Scandals during Bill Clinton's U.S. Presidency" which doesn't mention the Monica Lewinsky affair. Possible? Yes. Likely? FUCK YOU.
Lebowitz v. Wainwright 670 F. 2d 974, 980 (11th Cir. 1982),quoting 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1042
At time-code 2:18 ff, Holding has me state the general rule of textual criticism that the shorter reading is preferred because the tendency of later scribes was usually to make the existing text more understandable through expansions. That is, the very fact that Mark's shorter ending sounds so abrupt and unexpected and apparently textually justified in the eyes of the majority of conservative Christian scholars, is precisely the reason we should say that's what the author intended, since a longer version of the ending is slightly ore likely to be a mere scribal interpolation.
Holding responds that the issue is not Mark having a shorter ending but Mark's longer ending being "lost".
Well sorry Holding, but conservative inerrantist Christian textual scholar Daniel Wallace and other scholars think Mark intended to end at 16:8. See Daniel Wallace, "Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel" in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark, supra.
I do not cite that reference to "prove" anything. I only cite it to show that Holding is a liar, and that the problem of Mark's ending is not limited to the issue of how the ending became "lost" , but includes legitimately arguable points that Mark intended to end at 16:8. Holding is guilty of misleading his readers by pretending that the issues are more simple than they really are.
Holding then has me quoting Eusebius (showing he is responding to my blog and nobody else), who said when Peter learned of Mark's literary endeavor, Peter neither directly forbade it nor encouraged it, from which I conclude that Peter's supporting Mark's writing of a gospel is far less supported from the ancient sources than apologists usually preach.
Holding replies that Peter's apathy would be expected in an pre-literate society where oral preaching was the preferred method of obtaining information.
But Eusebius, in book 2, ch. 25, also gives a contradictory version of the tradition, and says when Peter heard of Mark's literary endeavor, Peter rejoiced at it:
BOOK II, CHAPTER 15Apparently, Holding's explanation that Peter's disapproval arose from his preference for oral tradition, is false. Or this story about Peter approving of the written form of his preaching is false.
And thus when the divine word had made its home among them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together with the man himself. And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark. And they say that Peter when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias. And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son."
Since Holding always holds a gun to his own head, ready to kill himself should there be any genuine contradiction between any two statements arising from the bible or church history, let's make the job easier for him:
|
Eusebius Book 2, ch. 15
|
Eusebius Book 6, ch. 14
|
|
And thus when the divine word had made its home among
them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together
with the man himself.
And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the
minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only,
and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel,
but
with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the
one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the
doctrine which had been orally communicated to them.
Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man,
and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name
of Mark.
And they say that Peter when he had learned,
through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been
done,
was pleased with
the zeal of the men,
and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority
for the purpose of being used in the churches. Clement in the eighth book of
his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named
Papias.
|
The Gospel
according to Marks had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly
at Rome, and
declared the Gospel by the Spirit,
many who were present requested that Mark, who had
followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them
out.
And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had
requested it.
When Peter learned
of this,
he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.
|
It doesn't matter how Holding "harmonizes" these two accounts: He doesn't know whether these traditions are referring to a single event, and one account is simply wrong; or if these two accounts are referring to Peter's reaction on two separate occasions. If he chooses to harmonize them, then we have to ask why Holding was so quick to assume Peter's preference for oral tradition, when another sources shows just the opposite about Peter. Of course, the sources don't give that many details, and Holding doesn't even know if any of this bullshit is even true, but Holding will pretend that his speculative harmonization of these questionable sources will be as obviously true as the existence of trees. He writes for childish types who automatically equate cocky confidence with spiritual maturity.
Holding goes on to say
In other words, when Peter learned by a revelation of the Spirit that Mark was putting Peter's preaching in written form, Peter believed that writing things down reduced a reliance on memory and thought this impacted the quality of learning.
In other words, Holding doesn't think the books in the bible were written by "people of the biblical world".
Well that wasn't Peter's reaction according to the alternative tradition from Eusebius book 2, ch. 15.
And you actually don't know for sure that Peter's apathy toward Mark's written effort was for that reason. Another equally reasonable possibility is that Peter found something wrong with Mark's version, or the report he heard about this literary effort said things Peter didn't approve of, etc, etc. Yet Holding argues as if the one possibility he chooses to defend is the only possibility that any reasonable person would choose. It is factually true to say that Holding is a confirmed and genuine egomaniac, which is apparently only news to his followers, nobody else.
And I have good reason to believe that if Holding had known about that secondary form of the Eusebius tradition on Peter before you created this video, you probably wouldn't have stuffed your foot all the way down your throat the way you did. Now tell yourself that god thinks it important that you post endless reply videos to YouTube.
For all these reasons, Holding's attempted arguments in that video are total shit, he has done NOTHING to disturb the arguments upon which my skepticism of Mark's resurrection account hinge.
I am also quite aware that Holding doesn't have much influence with too many people of any significance, which means I might be dignifying a retard simply by taking the time to respond to his videos.
There will be times in the future when I do not respond to something Holding argued, because I don't think it deserves a response. But if anybody notifies me that they would like to see my response, then I'll respond.
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