I have reported James Patrick Holding's sins to Kris Jordan of scripturesubjects.net

James Patrick Holding, the guy I'm suing for libel for about the 4th time, has at his tektonics.org advertised the link to another apologetics ministry website.  I found out who published that site and sent them the following email.  

Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@gmail.com>

to office

Hello,

At his website tektonics.org James Patrick Holding has provided links to your scripturesubjects.net site.  

Tekton Website Updates
January 10, 2021
The site review continuies. Meanwhile here are some external notes:
An up and coming apologetics website; sample here and here.
Special notice: Nick Peters now has a Patreon account.
---------------------------------------from ---http://www.tektonics.org/newstuff.php

Even assuming you don't "partner" with or otherwise work with Holding in any Christian activity, the apostle Paul requires you to disassociate yourself from so-called Christian 'brothers" who commit certain sins, one of them being "reviling":

 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU)

The Greek word for "reviler" there is λοίδορος / loidoros.  BDAG says it means "abusive person".  

TDNT explains:

 2. Christians should try to avoid calumny (1 Tim. 5:14), but when exposed to it (cf. Mt. 5:11) they should follow Christ's example (1 Pet. 2:23; cf. Mt. 26:63; Jn. 18:23), repaying railing with blessing (1 Pet. 3:9). This is the apostolic way of 1 Cor. 4:12: “When reviled, we bless” (cf. Diog. 5.15). By this answer to calumny the reality of the new creation is manifested. [H. HANSE, IV, 293-94]

("calumny" means using misrepresentations used for the purpose of harming another's reputation. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calumny)

DANKER says loidoros means "insolent person".

In English "reviler" means a person who subjects another to "verbal abuse"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revile

Chrysostom thought those who committed the sins Paul listed there were dishonoring God:

Chrysostom: The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon: Homilies on 1 Timothy
And, "If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater" (1 Cor. v. 11.), such a man honors not God.

Origen says the person who reviles is not a true brother:

Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, ch. 30
as the Apostle says, "If any one that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, etc., with such an one not to eat;"¹⁴ for no one who is an idolater, or a fornicator, or covetous, is a brother; for if he, who seems to bear the name of Christ, though he is named a brother, has something of the features of these, he would not rightly be called a brother.

 

Clement of Alexandria noted that you shouldn't even eat with a reviler:

Clement of Alexandria: The Instructor, book 2, ch. 1
Thus the apostle, in his solicitude for us, discriminates in the case of entertainments, saying, that "if any one called a brother be found a fornicator, or an adulterer, or an idolater, with such an one not to eat;"⁵ neither in discourse or food are we to join, looking with suspicion on the pollution thence proceeding, as on the tables of the demons.

Apostle Paul says abusive speech indicates the speaker is acting according to their old unredeemed nature:

 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
 8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--   (Col. 3:6-10 NAU)

Paul says filthy talk is a sign that the speaker is under the wrath of God:

 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Eph. 5:3-6 NAU)

Jesus said slanders defile the person who speaks them:

 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; (Matt. 15:18-20 NAU)  

The bible forbids you from associating with a person who gossips or otherwise "reveals secrets":

 19 He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip. (Prov. 20:19 NAU)

Why did I give you all that biblical precedent?

Because since 1998, James Patrick Holding has engaged consistently in filthy speech, insults, abusive talk, gossip and slander, and he has never stopped, including into the present.  I have sued Holding for libel, that lawsuit is currently pending, and his slanders of me were so extensive, my Complaint had to be 534 pages long just to document it all.

That Complaint is attached to this email as a pdf for your convenience.

Ever since 2015, Holding has posted to the internet numerous libelous comments and videos about me.  He even got hold of the video of my bus accident, photoshopped it, replaced the original audio with a fast-paced comedy song, then looped it so that the viewer would see me getting injured repeatedly about 500 times in a single minute. He posted that to YouTube.

When I complained that this video was libelous and caused me emotional distress, YouTube refused to take it down, and Holding refused to remove it.

My Complaint also documents Holding's tax scams.  When I sued him in 2015, he dissolved his Tekton Apologetics corporation.  When I sued him in 2016, he dissolved his Apologetics Afield corporation.  And yet he has, ever since, been asking for "tax-deductible" donations at his website.  For a couple of years he said he works with other 501(c)(3) organizations, but he never identifies these, and recently he changed the statement so that whether he still does or doesn't work with third-party ministries is ambiguous, and yet up until recently he said the donations would be used to support the "urgent work that we do here" (i.e., at tektonics.org... which to my knowledge Holding doesn't have tax-exempt status for, and which to my knowledge is not claimed by any legitimately tax-exempt organization to be their own ministry work product).

For years I tried to get the few Christian scholars that ever publicly endorsed Holding to engage in a Matthew 18 discussion since he was clearly committing sin toward me and was clearly unrepentant of it.  While none of them cared to do this, they have stopped publicly endorsing him.  

It gets worse.  Holding does not merely repeatedly commit the sin of slander...he has posted a long article attempting to show biblical justification for it.  And yes, in 2016 he libelously redacted a frivolous court order and appended it to this article.  Holding cannot be satisfied to stab me, he finds it necessary to twist the knife.

It gets worse:  During my 2015 lawsuit against Holding, he stated under oath that he has never deliberately intended to insult anybody.  That was his "tenth act of  perjury"  See Complaint pp. 451 ff.  My blog page explaining this, including link to free download of said Complaint, is:

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2020/06/james-patrick-holding-has-committed.html

It gets worse:  since 2015, Holding has repeatedly communicated to multiple people his allegedly good-faith belief that I have a very serious emotional disorder.  In other words, when Holding was posting all the libels about me between 2015 and 2021, he strongly believed that I was particularly susceptible to emotional distress.  A recent manifestation of his ill-will and hostility toward me (which the State of Florida says will make him liable for slander even if the comment he published about me was factually truthful) was his creating several websites each exclusively devoted to slandering me by means of libelously photoshopped court documents.  Just google "Christian Behrend Doscher" and/or

"Doscherleaks".  My lawsuit accuses him of misrepresenting my prior court cases.

Holding might know a lot about the bible, but in my 35 years of reading it, I cannot find any verse that says there is ever a time when it would be spiritually virtuous to use lies and gossip to subject severely emotionally disabled people to severe emotional distress.  For all of Holding's endless screeds about how "Jesus insulted the Pharisees, so we have automatica license to insult people too!", he appears to have overlooked, or else to not care about,  "thou shalt not lie".  Lies are not only direct falsehoods.  It is also lying to knowingly give somebody a false impression.

It gets worse:  Holding had to create the DoscherLeaks website several times, because every time I complained to the domain host that the site contained libelous material, they suspended the site.  The first host was a Christian company InMotion Hosting, the provider that Holding had used for nearly 20 years to also host his tektonics.org website.  After finding a Canadian host company that doesn't care about libelous content, he switched his tektonics.org site over to another and non-Christian host.

One might say those actions bespeak a mentally unstable individual who has a pathologically obsessive need to slander his critics.

You may contact Holding at jphold99@gmail.com, the address he gives the readers who might want to give him tax-deductible donations, even though he doesn't ever name the 501(c)(3) organizations that he is required to work with before that tax-exempt status can be lawful.

You may contact his lawyer Scott Livingstson at slivingston@cplspa.com.  Livingston used to be equally as boistriously mouthy and insulting toward me as Holding was, and didn't simmer down until the court entered an order admonishing him to quit using childish and stupid comments.

Perhaps the worst part is that Holding first paid a lawyer more than $20,000 to get my original lawsuit dismissed on the technicality of lack of jurisdiction, which means that he continued slandering me between 2016 and the present despite losing most of his life-savings to answer the legal action.  I have a reasonable belief that if the jury in the currently pending case awards me nothing, Holding will boast that this is because God made them see the light.  And if they award me substantial damages, Holding will merely insist the judicial system is controlled by the devil.  All of the consequences that would otherwise motivate mature adults guilty of libel to cease slandering mentally ill people, happened to Holding, yet these events did nothing but embolden him to increase his libelous harassment of me.  So because his spite and ill-will toward me are so clear, my lawsuit is asking for substantial punitive damages.

My current lawsuit has so far cost Holding what I conservatively estimate to be about $10,000, if his attorney's latest fee-disclosure is truthful.  And yet Holding refuses to remove any of the libelous postings about me.  Holding has thus spent nearly $30,000 answering my legal actions, and shows not the slightest hint that he might perhaps be in the wrong.

If in your opinion Holding's comments about me as documented in the Complaint did at some point transfer from "justified rebuke" over to "sinful slander", I would ask you to either ask him to stop advertising your ministry at his website (I'm assuming you agree with the bible, supra?) or demand that he participate in a Matthew 18 meeting.  He is, without any doubts whatsoever, that "reviler" from whom the apostle Paul says you must disassociate yourself.  

Every legitimately credentialed bible scholar that ever endorsed Holding in the past says there is ZERO biblical justification to either use insults to react to those who publicly criticize the gospel, or to use insult to repay insult.  Even Gary Habermas rebuked him for it.  Holding will have none of it.  Nope, if Jesus insulted the Pharisees, Holding thinks this grants automatic carte blanche to modern-day Christians to slanderously hiss and spit at anything they disagree with. 

The language of Holding that the Complaint documents as slanderous is also sexually filthy and sounds like it came from a demented juvenile delinquent, so make sure no children are with you when you read the Complaint.

Sincerely,

Christian Doscher

=====end of email=====================

Holding once commented on one of his YouTube videos that if he ever found out I had spoke disparagingly about him to anybody else, he would send them links to his posted comments about me.  So here's the stakes:

---- if Holding makes good on that promise in reaction to the above-quoted email, the jury will most certainly conclude that Holding's spiteful ill-will toward me is flying at truly pathological heights, thus motivating them to think only a higher amount of punitive damages has the slightest prayer of successfully deterring Holding from libeling me in the future.

---- If he doesn't make good on that promise in reaction to the above-quoted email, I will be arguing to the jury that 

a) Holding more than likely came to believe during this litigation that his posted comments about me were libelous, but 

b) because he has never removed his comments about me from the internet, it must be that Holding intentionally left up comments that he knew were libelous...thus motivating the jury to think only a higher amount of punitive damages has the slightest prayer of successfully deterring Holding from libeling me in the future. 

Once again, Holding lives in Florida, and that state has a peculiar law:  if you live there and publish comments about somebody to the internet, you could still be sued for libel even if the comment was factually and legally truthful.  Florida holds that truthful comments constitute actionable libel, if the person who posted them did so with motive to harm:

Publication of a true statement if done with ill will can be defamatory. See Fla. Const. Art. I § 4 (statement not libelous if true and published with good motive); Lewis v. Evans, 406 So.2d 489, 492 n. 2 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1981) ("In Florida, truth is not always an absolute defense to defamation.  In order to avoid liability, a `good motive' must also be shown."). Armstrong does not assert that the evidence was insufficient for the jury to conclude he acted with ill will.

Finch v. City of Vernon, 877 F. 2d 1497, 1504 (11th Cir. 1989)

 The parties argue over whether truth is an absolute defense to defamation under Florida law. Florida's Constitution provides, "In all criminal prosecutions and civil actions for defamation the truth may be given in evidence. If the matter charged as defamatory is true and was published with good motives, the party shall be acquitted or exonerated." Fla. Const. art. 1 § 4 (emphasis added). Florida courts, as we have previously noted, have interpreted this provision to mean that truth is not an absolute defense in a defamation action; "good motives" are also required. Finch v. City of Vernon, 877 F.2d 1497, 1504 (11th Cir. 1989) ("In Florida, truth is not always an absolute defense to defamation. In order to avoid liability, a `good motive' must also be shown." (quoting Lewis v. Evans, 406 So.2d 489, 492 n.2 (Fla. 2d DCA 1981)); see also id. ("Armstrong does not assert that the evidence was insufficient for the jury to conclude he acted with ill will."). Schiano responds pointing to an unpublished federal district court case in which the court opined that "[s]ubstantial truth is a complete defense to defamation, regardless of the motives of the defamer. It is a common tenet of First Amendment law that true statements are inactionable." Carroll v. TheStreet.com, Inc., No. 11-CV-81173, 2014 WL 5474061, at *11 (S.D. Fla. July 10, 2014). In light of Finch, the Carroll court incorrectly remarked that the "good motive" requirement "is not recognized" by the federal courts.

Friedman v. Schiano, Court of Appeals, fn. 16 (11^th Cir. 2019)

 

U]nder Florida law, truth is only a defense to defamation when the truth has been coupled with good motive."

Lispig v. Ramlawi, 760 So. 2d 170, 183-84 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000) 

For the people who are thinking about donating money to Holding, you'd rightly fear that your money might go not for ministry work but to pay me damages.  Yes, I sued Holdings corporation, but Florida law is explicit that where the corporation has been found guilty of wrong-doing, the corporation's officers and agents who committed the wrongs will be personally liable to pay the damages even if the Plaintiff doesn't ask the Court to pierce the corporate veil:

Under Florida law, "officers or agents of corporations may be individually liable in tort if they commit or participate in a tort, even if their acts are within the course and scope of their employment." White v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 918 So. 2d 357, 358 (Fla. 1st DCA 2005) (citations omitted). The same rule applies to limited liability companies. Cannon v. Fournier, 57 So. 3d 875, 881 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011); see also Candyman Kitchens Inc. v. Sandcrafters LLC, 2018 WL 6434058, *1 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 7, 2018) ("Under Florida law, a member or manager of a limited liability company is personally liable for torts committed within the scope of the employment."). "Liability will attach `even if no argument is advanced that the corporate form should be disregarded.'" Bradenton Motorsports Park, Inc. v. Long, 2011 WL 13244036, *1 (M.D. Fla. June 21, 2011) (quoting Fla. Speciality, Inc. v. H 2 Ology, Inc., 742 So. 2d 523, 528 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999)).

Skypoint Advisors, LLC v. 3 Amigos Productions LLC (D.C. MD Florida 2020)

The smart person doesn't donate jack shit to Holding.  The smart person demands that Holding either repent of his obvious sins of slander, or tells Holding to consign himself to be viewed by other Christian ministries to be just as corrupt as 1st century Jews thought tax-collectors were: 

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)

Download my 534-page Complaint against Holding  here.  Holding's lawyer has already told him that there is no meritorious defense against my charges.

Remember, I filed my Complaint in November 2020, so that was the time when Holding first started reading it.  Due to the Court not ruling on my case and due to the Corona virus epidemic causing the Florida court litigation to slow down, this means these events caused Holding to be given what is now about 8 extra months to review the Complaint, when in fact in normal circumstances he'd be required to file an Answer to Complaint within 30 days of it being served on him. 

So Holding's followers need to listen up: If the jury awards me any damages, you will not be able to trifle that maybe Holding was somehow prevented from making rebuttal arguments as powerful as he possibly could have.  No, Holding and his lawyer have been working together trying to brainstorm how they will answer my charges on the merits, and they've been given 8 extra months beyond the normal 30 day responsive window required in the Court rules.  If then Holding loses this lawsuit, it will only be AFTER he brought to bear on it all arguments he and his lawyer of 20+ years of corporate litigation experience thought would most powerfully exonerate him of the charges.  

Which would probably lead a reasonable person to conclude that there is only one reason Holding lost:  there simply ISN'T any possible defense on the merits, and Holding was undeniably guilty as charged.

The reasonable Christian at that point would insist that Holding has been committing the sin of slander for more than 20 years, and was so spiritually blind, he seriously thought a sinful act was a holy act.  Sure, authentically born-again Christians can sin, but if you wouldn't think Holding truly possessing salvation if he committed adultery every day for the last 20 years, why would you think he could possibly be saved in spite of his sins of slander every day for the last 20 years?

YOU might think reviling is "less evil" than adultery, but NT theology says commission of any type of sin makes you guilty of breaking ALL the commandments:

9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

 11 For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT REVILE." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do revile other people, you have become a transgressor of the law. (Jas. 2:9-11 NAU)

Inerrantist K. A. Richardson:

2:11 ...every sin constitutes a state of opposition to God. Sin is never a question of breaking a single command but of violating the integrity of the whole law. Each command is integral to the whole law.... We offend the whole through every single trespass because we are actually refusing submission to the being and person of God rather than simply the instrument itself (cf. 4:11f.).

Richardson, K. A. (2001, c1997). Vol. 36: James (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; 

The New American Commentary (Page 122). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

My reply to Taylor Brown on Adoptionism in Mark

 Christian apologist Taylor Brown posted an article (here) reviewing Dr. Michael Bird's "Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology".  I replied as follows.  I'm cross posting it here because Taylor has set up his blog to require him to approve replies before they post.

Full text:

barry • a few seconds from nowHold on, this is waiting to be approved by The Christian Revolution.

Hello,

I'd like to see your response to two skeptical contentions, namely, whether reasonableness can coexist with inaccuracy, and if so, whether accusing Mark of adoptionism can be reasonable even if wrong:

First argument:
If it be true that not all positions that are false, are also unreasonable (i.e., sometimes we make innocent mistakes), does this create at least a logical possibility that a person who derives Adoptionism out of Mark's gospel, despite being "wrong", might be "reasonable" nonetheless?

Second argument:
Since Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth, the 4 most viable possibe explanations would seem to be:

1 - Mark mentioned the virgin birth, but this part of his gospel is lost to us.
2 - Mark accepted the virgin birth as truth, but knowingly "chose to exclude" it from his gospel.
3 - Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth because he didn't know about it.
4 - Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth because he thought it was false.

Option # 1 seems unlikely since no Christian scholar argues this and nothing in patristics says Mark mentioned the VB.

Option 2 - seems unlikely since the VB would strongly support Mark's theory of Jesus' true identity. Mark choosing to exclude it is akin to an author who "chooses to exclude" Abraham Lincoln from a study of the Emancipation proclamation.

Option 3 - seems unreasonable assuming the a.d. 70 date the Christian scholarly majority assign to Mark, for then Mark must be thought to have somehow never have heard about the VB even 40 years after Jesus died. If the VB stories are historical truth, seems unreasonable that none of Mark's companions or associates during those 40 years said anything to him about the VB. And if we believe Irenaeus that Cerinthus the low-Christology Gnostic lived at the same time as the apostles, seems likely Mark would have been hearing "Jesus wasn't born of a virgin" at least a few times during that 40 year period.

Then again, Option 3 might be reasonable given we'd reasonably expect a person with a goal to prove Jesus' divine origin to find the VB a powerfully supporting evidence he wouldn't likely "chose to exclude"

Option 4 seems reasonable because even conservative scholars of Markan Priority persuasion affirm that Matthew often upgrades Mark's Christology (e.g. he changes Mark's "Jesus COULD not" to "Jesus DID not", and its probably not sheer coincidence that this change just happens to add a layer of protection to high-Christology. That is, the author of Mark is not a person who would likely ascribe to the high Christology found in the VB (I am not a Christian, and so i don't automatically assume that whatever we find in Mark is authentically from Mark, so I will not worry that my interpretation of something about Mark is wrong if it cannot be harmonized with something else found in "Mark").

Assuming that Mark thought the VB story true, can't Option 3 or 4 be "reasonable" even granting for the sake of argument that they are "wrong"?
I mean, it's not like Mark's reasons for omitting the VB are equally as clear as his association with Peter. And it's not like the reason most NT authors remain silent about the virgin birth is equally as clear as their reasons for thinking Jesus is Lord. The more obscure the "truth" that skeptics are denying, the more reasonable they can be to deny it, amen? barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

My reply to R.L. Solberg on the problems of bible "inerrancy"

This is my reply to an article by apologist R.L. Solberg entitled

Can the Bible be our Authority and not be Inerrant?

Link to original article.

Look, I get it. There are a growing number of Christians who love Jesus and do not want to give Him up, but they are also uncomfortable with some of the teachings of what we might call “mainstream Christianity.”

And if you refuse to say they lack salvation, then skeptics can demand that you explain why it is that some Holy Spirit filled people affirm inerrancy, while other Holy Spirit filled people deny inerrancy.  Does the Holy Spirit "try" to convince ignorant Christians and sometimes fail?  Does the Holy Spirit know exactly what needs to be done to successfully convince an ignorant Christian of the errors of her way?  If so, then the Holy Spirit's failure to put forth such divine effort makes it God's fault if the Christian, despite sincerity toward God, continues to persist in doctrinal error.

Especially those teachings that challenge the big issues we have to wrestle with today. Things like social justice, gender quality, women’s issues, and sexual issues like LGBTQ+.

My advice is to quit trying to change things, because making even one change social policy does little more than create 4 additional problems that didn't exist before.  Keep up that shit, and you wind up with a society that is so complex that it will collapse.  America would be far better off today had it never succumbed to innovation.  Suffrage and Civil Rights might have seemed good from a short-term perspective, but in the long-term perspective, these changes emboldened the people to cry out for further and further innovation, and presto, here we are today, with some states legalizing hard drugs, and the U.S. Supreme Court having legalized gay marriage.  The Christians are correct:  America's problems all stem from its citizens' inability to be content with what they currently have.  

There’s a tension there, especially for those who care deeply about these issues and want to be right with God. I feel the tension, too. And it raises a legitimate question: How do we balance our faith and our love of Jesus with these other important issues?

Good question, if Jesus was the YHWH of the OT, he probably still wanted to kill gays even after the incarnation.  Leviticus 20:13.  Consistency would demand no less.  Of course, I don't trifle about Jesus "fulfilling" the OT laws because the fact that Protestants and Catholics disagree on the theological significance of his death despite myriad scholarly tomes from each camp trying to "explain" it, I find the death of Jesus to constitute nothing more than the death of a mammal.  Thus there is no intellectual obligation on me to consider that maybe Jesus didn't advocate the brutality of the OT morality because he "fulfilled" those laws.  Not even close.

One approach currently growing in popularity is to retain the Bible as an authority but reject the belief that it is inerrant.

A more refined version of that position would be to avoid inerrancy because the bible simply doesn't teach it.  Never having taught it, there is no bible inerrancy doctrine to reject in the first place.  Mainline Inerrancy says "only in the originals", the bible never specifies any such qualification, and only stupid people would pretend that God wants them to wrap their lives around a doctrine that they constructed partially from non-biblical "truths".  If any conception of inerrancy says something that cannot be found in the bible, then to that extend that doctrine is not "biblical".

This gives us some wiggle room to hold on to both Jesus and our social positions. Rejecting the inerrancy of the Bible can help to resolve a number of thorny moral issues. We can, for example, conclude that the teachings found in Scripture against homosexual behavior are outdated, ancient notions that are no longer appropriate. (See my LGBTQ+ sensitivity statement.)

If you don't advocate killing homosexuals, then you have concluded that at least one law in scripture against homosexual behavior is an outdated ancient notion that is no longer appropriate.

However, rejecting the inerrancy of Scripture also introduces some very tricky complications. At first glance, rejecting inerrancy seems to allow us to cut off those old, dead branches from Christian teaching that are no longer bearing fruit. But in reality, we end up sawing through the very branch that holds up our faith. Let me explain what I mean.

What is Biblical Inerrancy?
Biblical Inerrancy is simply the teaching that the Bible is without fault or error in everything that it teaches or affirms.

Only in the originals. But correctly qualifying it that way makes the doctrine unbiblical.  None of the classic biblical texts on "inerrancy" express or imply "only in the originals".  They were talking about the state of the copies that were available to the author.  So "only in the originals" might be a qualification that solves a lot of problems for the trifling inerrantist, but it's not "biblical".  

And since the biblical authors who mentioned scriptural inspiration were talking about the copies currently in their possession (2nd  Tim. 3:16, see v. 15), the bible will require any doctrine of inerrancy to ascribe inerrancy to at least some types of copies in the unqualified way that Paul did in that verse.  Welcome to hell.

This is, by nature, a binary issue. The Bible is either inerrant or it is not.

If the bible were a composite whole, that is valid.  But the bible is a collection of different works from different authors over a time span of 1500 years.  There is nothing about mistakes in Genesis that would require mistakes in Matthew.   There is nothing about the inerrancy of Deuteronomy that would require Romans to be inerrant.  There is nothing about mistakes of Southern Baptists that requires mistake among the Assemblies of God.  Dedication to the "canon" of the bible is a shockingly ignorant thing, because it has more to do with accepting what was produced by the traditions of men and less to do with following what Jesus said.  If Jesus did not require the church to create any canon, then Jesus cannot have thought creating a canon was very important to the spiritual health of his church.  So to the extent the church makes any canon fundamental to its purpose, they are doing the Pharisee-thing and adding to the word of the Lord.

It cannot be “partially inerrant,” since that would be the same thing as being errant.

That doesn't make sense.  There is nothing wrong in saying one document contains a mixture of truth and error.  The evidence in favor of the divine origin of the bible is not sufficiently weighty to justify insisting the bible should be viewed as either entirely inerrant or untrustworthy. Like any other document, there is nothing unreasonable in saying the bible also contains mixtures of truth and error.

The 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy captures the mainstream Christian position on this issue. For our purposes, here’s a simple definition of the two possible positions:

The Bible is Inerrant 

The fact that so many Christians believe this but differ on what they mean, would justify skeptics to label the matter a confusing and pointless waste of time, if they chose to avoid spending time on it.

The Bible is not Inerrant 

Jesus never talked about any NT canon, so Christians are not under any obligation to even care whether any NT book outside of their personal favorite gospel is inerrant.  If Paul the Pharisee wanted others to view his NT writings as inerrant scripture, then apparently upon converting to Christianity he didn't lose all of his Phariseeic tendencies to equate traditions of men with god's word. 

The Bible was written by men but superintended by the Holy Spirit and is, therefore, without error or fault in all that it teaches or affirms.

No, because God can guide you today, without rendering you perfect in the process.  Hence, there is no logically necessary reason to insist that if God inspired the bible, it must therefore be considered inerrant.  You'll have to plead and prove something more about the bible than merely god's "inspiring" it.

The Bible is a collection of writings from good but fallible men. Therefore, some of the things it teaches or affirms may be wrong.

No, you think Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.  You have read plenty of stories from pagans living around 1300 b.c. who slaughtered children in times of war, and you think they are all batshit crazy, not "good".  But as soon as you read that Moses specifically commanded his people to kill children and babies (Numbers 31:17), then suddenly, you insist that Moses is "good" in a very special way.  LOL.

That's the most objective position since the evidence in favor of the bible's divine inspiration is so weak that the bible does not deserve to be viewed as an exception to the rule.

Let’s take a brief look at four aspects of this issue.
“God is inerrant but the Bible is not.”
The progressive Christians that I have read or spoken with all subscribe to the idea that God is inerrant, but the Bible is not. That seems reasonable on the surface. But it opens up the proverbial can of worms.

God opened a proverbial can of worms when he got bored of his perfect pre-creation state and decided to create creatures that he knew would cause him to become intensely wrathful.   That's like a man who knows he is easily pissed off at kids, deciding to have kids.  If the kids make him so angry that he kills them, who's fault is that?  The kids for misbehaving, or Dad's fault for choosing to create the condition under which he knew his wrath would become aroused to the point of killing?

If God is without error, was it His intention to give us a set of writings that He knows contains errors?

The bible doesn't answer that, so maybe Paul would have considered this one of those "foolish questions" he wants Christians to avoid? 

Was God unable to use human authors to successfully communicate His truths inerrantly?

Depends on whether you ask a Calvinist or an Arminian, who differ on whether man's "freewill" is capable of thwarting God's purposes. 

Or maybe the Bible was an entirely human idea that God did not intend we should have created?

Since you couldn't prove the divine origin of the biblical canon to save your life anyway, this seems a reasonable position. 

If that’s the case, what can we as Christians know about God apart from Scripture?

Well the fact that God doesn't want you to know anything about him except what you read in the bible, and the fact that God doesn't wish for Christians to agree on what God is like, might suggest that your religion cannot provide a reasonably certain answer to your question.

In Romans 1, Paul teaches that we can know some things about God from His creation.

Paul was a heretic and in Romans 1 and elsewhere he took the OT out of context.  In Romans 3 he condemns the entire human race on the authority of various OT texts that in their original context were not talking about the entire human race.  In the real world that's called "ripping the OT out of context".   But in Fantasyland, where nothing is ever yucky or wrong, we call it "God allowed Paul to see a deeper meaning than what the OT authors themselves intended".  LOL, is the evidence for God's inspiring Paul to write Romans so great that the only reasonable choice for the reader is to grant Paul an exception to the rule of context whenever it "looks like" he is taking the OT out of context? No.  you will do that because of your present trust in Paul's divine inspiration, but the evidence supporting his divine inspiration is so weak that it cannot possibly place the non-Christian reader under any intellectual obligation to worry about "double-fulfillment" or "sensus plenior"

This is what theologians call general revelation. From the “book of nature” alone we can learn that God is powerful, creative, intelligent, majestic, and so on.

The book of nature also has baboons eating baby gazelles alive.  So the book of nature also testifies that this god is a sadistic lunatic even if it also testifies that he is "smart", just like Nazi scientists were smart, but barbaric and cruel nonetheless.  You will say "I'm a young-earth creationist, animals didn't start brutalizing each other until Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit."  But many other Christians are "old earth creationists" who say God intended carnivores to inflict horrific misery on each other for millions of years before Adam and Eve existed.   If Nature exhibits intelligent design, you cannot avoid the question of what type of morality the "creator" of that design harbors.  If I create a robot that kills humans in complete disregard of their own feelings, individual lives and rights, what does that tell you about my morality?  That my ways are mysterious, or that I'm barbaric?  And yet because the bible uses so much exaggeration, you cannot just read the bible like yesterday's newspaper and pretend that God's "goodness" must prevail over his "works".  God's "word" always calls himself good and righteous.  But if nature exhibits his "works", well, actions speak louder than words.

But does the “book of nature” reveal to us a God who is loving and merciful?

No.  The "book of nature" consists of various different life forms, some of whom treat each other fairly, others of whom treat each other like shit.  The "book of nature" does not give you a consistent position, except perhaps n the sense of a super smart child who creates random robots just to see how they will interact with each other.

If we only study nature, we might come to the opposite conclusion. The world can be a violent and unfair and unforgiving place. Creatures violently killing other creatures for food or fun. Indeed, without the Bible how would we arrive at the idea that God is inerrant?

But some Christians who revere the bible are open-theists, who say God is imperfect and learns from his mistakes.

Wouldn’t we see the violence and injustice and suffering and evil in the world and conclude that God probably got a few things wrong?

No, the god of Deut. 28:15-63 fits perfectly a world full of sadistic lunacy.  See esp. v. 63, where God promises he will "rejoice" to inflict these horrific miseries on disobedient Hebrews no less than he rejoices to provide abundance to obedient Hebrews.  If you try to avoid that carnage by saying ancient Semitic authors often exaggerated to make a dramatic point, then we have to wonder how many other statements about God in the bible, also written by ancient Semitic people, are mere exaggeration, and if so, what damage to existing doctrine would be caused if you started trying to figure out which parts of doctrinal texts were exaggerations and which parts were true.  Does Psalm 90:2 teach that God is eternal?  Or is this merely an ancient Semitic exaggerated way of saying God is really old?  Does John 1:1 teach that Jesus is God?  Or is this just an ancient Semitic exaggerated way of saying Jesus is the greatest of all creatures?

Aside from God appearing and speaking to us directly, the Bible is our only source of direct knowledge about God — including His perfection and goodness.

and God's unwillingness to do everything he can to convince you that you are headed for disaster, also tells you something about God - his love for you is limited.  

It offers what theologians call special revelation. Scripture is God’s witness to Himself. And if that witness is full of errors, what do we really know? Can we even conclude that God is inerrant?

If your human spiritual leaders are imperfect, what do you really know?  Can you ever get the right interpretation of the bible if you are constantly at the mercy of other imperfect sinners who provide you imperfect English translations and imperfect commentaries?

Exactly how stupid is it to give an "inerrant" message to a person without also providing them with the infallible interpretive key?  "Well maybe god wants us to grope for  the "correct" interpretationi" for a few years before he will allow us to detect it!"

Blame it on my genetic predispositions, or my environmental conditioning, or both, but I don't waste my time serving fuckhead leaders who demand that I align with "truth", but who then intentionally hide the truth from me.

Inerrant bible without infallible interpretive key is just batshit crazy, at least in the case of modern Americans who cannot benefit from direct real-time apostolic oral tradition.

And if God allowed first century people to have the infallible interpretive key (i.e., Jesus and the apostles), why doesn't God allow modern America to recover the correct meaning of scripture with equal ease?  Does God hate modern America more than he hated 1st century Palestine?  

Did you ever wonder about those "corporate responsibility" texts in the bible?  Could it be that if God dislikes a great leader in America, God will not merely punish the individual leader, he will do what he did in the bible, and punish the entire nation?  In other words, because most leaders in America are corrupt, "god" punishes the entire American nation (i.e., including Christians)?  Maybe that might explain why "god" doesn't answer even sincere prayers of American citizens?  Maybe God is the type of being who will punish American churches and their members because they happen to be settled in a country that is run by corrupt politicians?

How is that different from God allowing innocent children to be swept up in disasters and crimes that they obviously aren't personally responsible for?  Maybe your god won't start healing Christianity until the American nation stops being so corrupt....because for whatever reason, your "god" coincidentally just happens to believe in the same doctrine of corporate responsibility that most ancient people believed in?

The Problem of Objectivity

A progressive Christian writer named Derek Vreeland brings up a compelling point against inerrancy. In a 2019 article, he claims that “Underneath the arguments for biblical inerrancy is the desire for pure objectivity.” He goes on to point out that there is really no such thing as pure objectivity. Any interpretation of the Bible is going to be subjective based on who is doing the interpreting. To underscore his point, he asks some tough questions:
Who determines the difference between what the Bible is recording and what it is affirming?
Who determines the criteria by which we judge the correctness of our interpretation?
Who determines the meaning of each biblical text?
Vreeland summarizes the problem of objectivity by pointing out the inherent difficulties it presents:
Fallible people have to decide what the Bible is affirming. Mistaken-prone human beings must do the hard work of interpretation. Imperfect people have to determine the meaning and purpose of Scripture.Derek Vreeland

Vreeland’s observations are current. However, what I think he misses is that problem of objectivity gets worse—much worse—if we reject the inerrancy of the Bible. If we accept the idea that the Bible is a collection of historical writings from good but fallible men and, therefore, some of the things it teaches or affirms are in error, we are left with a much scarier set of questions. Then we have to ask:
Who determines which teachings in the Bible are free of error?
Who decides which biblical affirmations can be rejected as faulty?
Who determines which verses or passages we can ignore because they got it wrong?

In all three cases, the individual interpreter.

If we accept the Bible’s inerrancy, the differences of opinion between fallible human beings are naturally addressed by comparing the opinions to Scripture.

No, because inerrantists disagree on what scripture teaches, which would hardly be the case if scripture were "clear". 

The text of the Bible becomes the arena in which the battle of interpretation is waged. On the other hand, if the Bible is errant, we can only appeal to the ever-shifting arena of public opinion to work out the differences.

I don't see the problem, YOU are errant, yet you seem to find your way in the world just fine without some infallible person showing what to do and where to go.  A better question is what's more reasonable:  denying inerrancy because it is false and accepting the consequent increase in bible-difficulties?  Or accepting inerancy despite its falsity so that you can feel secure that there's some magical book guiding your life, when in fact because of the need for interpretation, the book's magic never actually gets to you, YOU are guiding your life by YOUR interpretation of that book. How could it be otherwise?

The Authority of Scripture
Vreeland claims that the language of inerrancy grows out of an “evangelical anxiety of elevating a human critique of Scripture over the intended divine revelation within the text.” And he’s not wrong. We should have serious anxiety about elevating our own opinions over the teachings of Scripture.

But it is an "opinion" that says the bible is inerrant.  When you say "the bible is inerrant", you mean some defined canon of books, different from the Catholic and Orthodox canons.   You also mean that the teachings of the biblical authors are inerrant, which is foolish since it wouldn't matter if this were true, you are never going to successfully trivialize the need for subjectivity.  We see inerrantist Christians in constant disagreement (I'm mean the serious scholars, not just any yayhoo, see Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society).  I have to wonder how dumb it really is to insist that a text that proves to be fatally subjective in meaning, must nevertheless be "inerrant".

If we get to decide what parts of the Bible are right and which parts are in error, we are putting the Word of God under submission to (what even Vreeland would concede) are the opinions of fallible humans.

Fallible humans also wrote the originals, and later fallible humans decided which books should go together.  Belief in inerrancy might make it seem as if there is a decrease in subjectivity, but it doesn't.

In other words, we’re putting subjective human opinions in position of authority over the Bible.

What makes you think the human authors of the originals weren't putting their subjective opinions in a position of authority over God?  You'd be begging the question to say "my belief in inerrancy!" 

If Vreeland is right and the Bible is errant, we need to update his quote to read:
Fallible people get to decide what the Bible got right and wrong. Mistaken-prone human beings get to determine the meaning and purpose of Scripture.

 I'm not seeing the problem, because that has never ceased being the case with Christians for the last 2,000 years.  Once again, inerrant text without inerrant interpretive guide is just stupid, stupid, stupid.  As soon as you start in with "well maybe God wanted a person to be a Jehovah Witness for 30 years before showing them the truth..." you permanently open a door to justifying disagreement with your god.  I don't want to believe something false, EVER.  So if your god wants me to believe something false for any reason, then apparently a sinner has greater desire for truth than even your god.

If the Bible is not inerrant in all it teaches and affirms, then anything goes.

"anything goes" is what inerrantist Christians have given to the world with their contradictory "biblical" answers to issues of Jesus' resurrection, his "deity", the theological implications of his death (Protestants and Catholics disagree on this), abortion, pacifism, death penalty, dating, church attendance, creationism, Lordship Salvation, etc.

Each of us get to decide—as a community or even as individuals—which teachings seem right to us. The parts we don’t agree with, or we don’t understand, or don’t “feel” right can be dismissed as ancient human errors.

Inerrantist Trinitarian Christian apologists Copan and Flannagan (2014) get rid of the bible texts showing God commanded his people to slaughter children, by saying that because the pagans living around the Hebrews in the days of Moses often exaggerated their war victories, we may safely assume the Hebrews did the same.  So since "exaggerate" means "go beyond the truth", and there is no other category this would be except "error", we have modern inerrantists admitting that biblical authors sometimes spoke errantly.

A fanatical inerrantist will narrowly define "error" as a falsehood which the biblical author intended the reader to believe...that way, when errors are proven, the inerrantist can simply scream "satire" or something else and insist that because the bible author didn't intend the reader to take the factual assertions literally, then presto, there is no genuine "error" here.  But they can know nothing about God except from the bible, and there's nothing in the bible suggesting that certain types of error, "don't count".

And, as Augustine so eloquently wrote seventeen centuries ago:

If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.—Augustine

Then all inerrantists are guilty of this, since they all reject biblical teachings they don't like.  For example, they don't like that the earliest gospel found great significance in Jesus' pre-cross teachings, but saw none in Jesus' alleged resurrection appearances.  So they come up with fancy excuses for insisting that Mark had more to say after 16:8.  Maybe the last page went missing.  Or maybe Mark disagreed with the other 3 gospel authors and decided that the resurrection appearances should be limited to the oral-stage.  Or maybe Mark wanted to be less direct in telling the reader that the risen Christ was seen by his disciples.  Etc, etc.  They obviously don't like the notion that Mark intended to end at 16:8.

We cannot claim that Scripture is our authority and at the same time exercise our own fallible human authority over what it says by vetoing or rejecting certain teachings.

That's idealistic, but inerrantists still violate this every day.  If Revelation seems to say something you don't like, you can choose from several different interpretive schools to get rid of the problem.

Recognizing Error
Here’s one way to think about this issue. In order to recognize that the Bible got a particular teaching wrong, we need to know what the “right” teaching is. In other words, we need to claim that we know better than the Scripture, that we have some level of knowledge over and above the Biblical authors.

No, we can know that one biblical teaching is false, if we can prove that it contradicts another biblical teaching.  Because they contradict each other, logically at least one of them has to be false, and whichever one is false doesn't matter, its falsity will defeat a claim of full biblical inerrancy. 

How else could we recognize an error unless we thought we knew the right answer?

By noting that two teachings contradict each other, so that logically one of them MUST be false even if you cannot know specifically which one is false. 

How does an English professor grade her student’s papers unless she knows the correct answers to the questions she asked?

Not a good analogy, the correct answers to English test questions are more obvious than the correct answers to the question of how to "correctly" interpret a bible verse.

And if we know better than the Bible, how can we claim it as an authority over our life?

Good point.  Jesus never expressed or implied that any of his followers ever had to "read the bible" to anywhere near the fanatical degree pushed by modern inerrantists.  Probably because he thought his 2nd Coming would occur sooner than any need to canonize a NT.

The spiritual and moral truths taught in Scripture are not reducible to facts on par with scientific knowledge. With science, we might come across an ancient writing that claimed the Earth was flat. But now that enlightened modern man has actually travelled through space and seen the Earth from above, we know that it is round. But the Bible is not a science book.

But if its words are "inspired by God" then the question is:  how likely is it that a god who is infinitely more fanatical about "truth" than today's inerrantists, might condescend to using mere "language of appearance" when addressing ancient mankind?  Would such a god ever tell a sinner "the sun is setting"?  We accept that language, but only because we don't care about truth to the same infinite degree that the inerrantist's god allegedly does.

This god was allegedly capable of causing even his enemies to believe whatever he wanted them to believe (Ezra 1:1).  So causing his human followers to write in the bible "the world is spherical in shape" wouldn't have been very difficult.  Not if we factor in God's sometimes granting them the ability to physically fly "up" to heaven (2nd Cor. 12:1-4) where they could presumably fly around and note that the earth is spherical.

It teaches us about issues of origin, purpose, morality, meaning, salvation, destiny. These aren’t the types of issues on which modern humanity has uncovered some enlightening new information. These are the foundational elements of the human experience.

We certainly know a whole lot more about human biology today than our ancient ancestors did. And yet, the human body still needs the same fundamentals it always has: food, water, oxygen, rest.

I think that is a valid point, but...isn't this what most apologists would label as the fallacy of uniformitarianism (the present is the key to the past)?  Wouldn't a Christian have a problem with you presuming that the way human bodies work today is the way they worked in the past?  After all, using the present to interpret the past is precisely why naturalism rejects the miraculous aspects in ancient stories.

Humans also still need—as we always have—love, meaning, moral direction, spiritual salvation. Those things have not changed since the Bible was written.

Preaching to the choir.

In Sum
The questions that progressive Christianity asks are hauntingly similar to the question that the devil asked Eve in the Garden of Eden.

“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1)

Now you are just playing upon the fears of the choir. 

This is how our spiritual enemy began his campaign to draw Eve into disobeying God, and in the process, brought down the whole human race.

Blame it on God.  That's what Calvinists advise me to do. 

Progressive Christianity uses that same question today: “Did God actually say ________?”

Because if they DIDN'T ask that question, then they would have no reason to bother distinguishing alleged words of God, from other works which pretend to give, but don't really give, words of God. 

Fill in the blank with whatever biblical teaching you want. Rejecting the inerrancy of the Bible is the doorway into asking these kinds of questions.

No, acceptance of inerrancy is also the doorway into asking these questions, since as soon as the inerrantist thinks some bit of the bible wasn't in the originals, they confuse their imperfect textual opinion for God's own presence. At the end of the day, a Christian cannot possibly believe anything beyond what his fallible human mind has decided is "truth".

Did God actually say that Jesus is the only way to salvation?

Not sure that it makes any sense to remark that god "said" anything.  If God is spirit (John 4:24) and spirits are not composed of human parts (Luke 24:39), then you'll have to come up with a theory of non-physical-vocal-cords-in-another-dimension-which-can-nevertheless-disturb-the-physical-air-in-this-world, before it can make sense to further remark about the bible god "saying" anything.  It's arguments like this which justify skepticism toward biblical stories about voices coming from the sky.  Or you'll have to establish the possibility of telepathy so that God can "say" something directly to the brain of a human being.  Good luck.  What?  Daniel 9?  LOL.

The OT prophets always spoke dogmatically, yet according to Jeremiah there were many who were false. Apparently, not even when you have the very word of God delivered direct by the true prophet, would it be the least bit "clear" that God is truly inspiring him. 

Did God actually say homosexual behavior is a sin?

Did God ever tell anybody that the death-penalty for homosexuality was "fulfilled" any more than the prohibition on adultery was?  It's probably no coincidence that what "god" wants his followers to do proves to get more and more tolerant and liberal as the centuries roll on.  If you are gay in the days of Moses, you die.  If you are gay in modern America, "we'll pray for you". 

Did God actually say that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church?

No, that was Paul the heretic. Since he perverted the basic gospel, the question of whether he had anything else useful to say at all, is about as moot as the question of whether Mormons have anything useful to say.  Yes, the probably do, but because of their great heresies, probably best to just completely avoid their advice.

If we regard the Bible as errant, these questions are all fair game for changing the teachings handed down by Jesus and the Apostles into a faith we’re more comfortable with personally.

And you just described exactly how things are in the inerrantist-camp.  They are just shrewd lawyers who pretend they aren't rejecting, but only "interpreting", whereas it appears the more honest answer is that they are doing both. 

On the other hand, if we regard the Bible as inerrant, when we come to passages that rub our modern sensibilities the wrong way, we’re forced to wrestle with them.

A completely unnecessary headache, given how obvious it is that bible inerrancy is a false doctrine. 

And in the end the question is this. Do we adjust our beliefs to align with what God teaches, or do we adjust what God teaches to align with our beliefs?

Neither, God hasn't provided an infallible interpretive key to the bible, so you are stuck forever in subjective interpretation, a thing that keeps even conservative Protestant Trinitarians in disagreement with each other, let alone with non-Protestant denominations.

My reply to Dr. Phillip J. Long on Mark 3:21 and John 7:5

Dr. Phillip J. Long raises the issue of the problems of Jesus' own family refusing in Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to believe his claims before he was crucified.  See here.  There he even admits there is some evidence that the brothers had seen Jesus' miracles prior to their adopting an unbelieving stance toward him.  Dr. Long has a Ph.d  in NT studies, so his notion that the brothers became skeptical after seeing Jesus alleged "miracles", appears reasonable, unlike several desperate apologists I've debated in the past who trifled that the NT never actually says the brothers ever saw Jesus doing any miracle.

Those texts are genuinely problematic, because they occur in gospels that otherwise say Jesus romped around the countryside wowing people with his genuinely supernatural miracles...leaving modern people of common sense to wonder why so many strangers found Jesus believable, but Jesus' own family not only didn't believe him, they maintained that unbelief all the way up to some point past the crucifixion.  Here's a screenshot of the reply I posted to Dr. Long's blog, the full of text of which follows:

Full text:

Hello, I'm a skeptic, and here's my take on the problems raised by Mark 3:21 and John 7:5:

First, numerous Christian scholars and apologists concede that Jesus' brothers did not believe in him throughout the entire duration of his pre-crucifixion ministry.  Licona is representative of Geisler, Habermas and others in saying

"The preponderance of the evidence favors the conclusion that the brothers of Jesus were not counted among his followers through the time of Jesus’ execution. By all accounts, they appear to have maintained a distance from their brother’s ministry (Licona, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach”, IVP Academic, 2010, p. 455).  

So which is more likely:  Jesus' brothers didn't believe in him because they were so blinded by jealousy and/or a desire for a military messiah that they refused to apply common sense toward miracles they saw Jesus was doing, like feeding 5,000 and raising the dead?  

Or Jesus' brothers don't believe in him during the pre-crucifixion period because they saw a few of his "miracles" and, like skeptics at a Benny Hinn crusade, decided those miracles were fake?

I take the latter since a) the brotherly-unbelief passages pass the criterion of embarrassment while the passages saying Jesus did miracles do not, so the brotherly-unbelief passages are more historically reliable than the passages saying Jesus did miracles, and

b) it violates common sense to say that Jesus' family could be so shockingly dense toward their own brother who is allegedly doing these miracles ("Yes, we know that Jesus has raised back to life people who were obviously dead....but....we just want a military messiah...can't you just leemee alone!?!")  LOL, 

b) Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead, so that when the brothers exude unbelief toward Jesus, they are also denying the ministries of other people where such miracles are supposed to be repeated and corroborated.  So the unbelief of the brothers is so shocking that it screams for something other than jealousy of Jesus' popularity, or some unreasonable biased expectation for Jesus to be a military messiah.

Second, most responsible Christian scholars of today acknowledge that Benny HInn has thousands of devoted followers, yet they also insist that Hinn has never employed supernatural power, or at least cannot demonstrate it so when directly challenged to produce evidence of such.  So there's nothing about the gospel passages saying large crowds followed Jesus, that mitigates the skeptical position I take, supra.  We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.

Third, If we allow the protestants' mostly symbolic interpretation of Jesus cannibalistic sounding statements in John 6:57, then the many disciples of his who stopped following him because of that saying (6:66) can only imply that Jesus had not done much more to ground his messiahship claims beyond "teaching" stuff.  In other words, the "miracles" Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those "miracles" successfully corroborated any of his teachings.

Fourth, most apologists trifle that there's no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus' miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying "John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe", supra.  So apparently, when skeptics like me who argue that in the collectivist honor/shame culture, Jesus' family would surely have heard back from others about such miracles, even if his family didn't start out monitoring Jesus from the beginning, we skeptics are justifying our naturalistic interpretation from the cultural realities of the day.

Fifth, if we assume Jesus was god since before he was born into humanity, then we must also assume that never during his childhood, or ever in the entire 30 years that his family knew him, did Jesus ever sin.  His parents and brothers during his childhood would have found this disconcerting in the least (and I seriously doubt anybody will trifle that Jesus sinned in his human nature but not his divine nature, just so they can get rid of this bit of skeptical common sense).  

So if Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 are true, it would appear that Jesus' family did not see anything about Jesus in their 30 years of knowing him which gave them probable cause to believe he was anything other than a normal if perhaps extroverted person.  

I have much more to argue, but for right now, the question is whether skeptics can be reasonable to interpret Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 the way I do, supra.  I say we skeptics can indeed be reasonable that way.  It isn't like my skeptical interpretation is failing to take into account any rule of historiography, hermeneutics or common sense.  Yes, I deny the rule "scripture interprets scripture", as that merely presumes the truth of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, a doctrine which I along with most Christian scholars deny, a doctrine that even inerrantists cannot come to agreement on despite decades of trying within the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.   barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

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Once again, I only care to reply to fundamentalist Christians and "apologists" who say skepticism toward Jesus' resurrection is always unreasonable for those who know the gospel and have seen the evidence.  I obviously use Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to argue that Jesus could not do genuinely supernatural miracles...and it's a very short walk from "Jesus couldn't do genuinely supernatural miracles" over to "God probably wouldn't ground his Second Covenant upon the words and works of a deceiver".

So the question this blog piece will be limited to is:  What is it about my above-posted skeptical interpretation of Mark 3:21 and/or John 7:5, which violates any standard canon of historiography, hermeneutics, or common sense?  If I am "unreasonable" to interpret those texts the way I do, why?  

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Update June 27, 2021: Dr. Long responded to me, and I replied to his response, as follows:

Phillip J. Long
June 23, 2021
Thanks for your detailed response…
“First, numerous Christian scholars and apologists concede that Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him throughout the entire duration of his pre-crucifixion ministry”

Agreed, this is uncontroversial.

“Jesus’ brothers don’t believe in him during the pre-crucifixion period because they saw a few of his “miracles” and, like skeptics at a Benny Hinn crusade, decided those miracles were fake?”

This is more or less the gist of the original post, which was about the people in Nazareth questioning the source of his authority to teach and perform miracles. I suspect (although could never prove) that they were convinced by the Pharisees that he was doing miracles by the power of Beelzebul.

“Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead”

I do not see any raising the dead in Matthew 10. Matthew 10:1, he gave the authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness. But otherwise the point stands.

“We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.”
This is a great analogy (I am stealing it). I personally would play the role of a Pharisee with respect to Hinn and others and say the source of that power is not God.

“In other words, the “miracles” Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those “miracles” successfully corroborated any of his teachings.”

Here is where we will disagree, since in the Second Temple Period a messiah who does not do miracles does not make sense. Jewish messianic expectations drawn from Isaiah 35:5-6 or Isaiah 61:1-2 (for example) connect healing with the coming eschatological age (blind see, deaf hear, lame, leap). Jews at the time of Jesus did not allegorize those texts, they really did expect signs from heaven. Pharisees asked Jesus for signs, and explained his power of demons as a sign he too was in league with Beelzebul.

“most apologists trifle that there’s no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus’ miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying “John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe”

Well, I did not know you when I wrote that, so you might agree with me . I cannot imagine the brothers not being aware of what Jesus was doing if the villagers in Nazareth knew he was doing miracles; I have no idea what would motivates an “apologist” to say such a thing.

Barry Jones
June 27, 2021
barry: “Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead”
Phil: I do not see any raising the dead in Matthew 10. Matthew 10:1, he gave the authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness. But otherwise the point stands.
barry: see Matthew 10:8…”Heal the sick, raise the dead, (Matt. 10:8 NAU)

barry: “We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.”
Phil: This is a great analogy (I am stealing it). I personally would play the role of a Pharisee with respect to Hinn and others and say the source of that power is not God.
——Why? I see no reason to think there is anything supernatural whatsoever in Hinn’s “miracles”. He always fails when challenged to document his “healings”, and several investigative reports established that a few who got “healed” were not only never healed, but sometimes got worse.

barry: “In other words, the “miracles” Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those “miracles” successfully corroborated any of his teachings.”
Phil: Here is where we will disagree, since in the Second Temple Period a messiah who does not do miracles does not make sense. Jewish messianic expectations drawn from Isaiah 35:5-6 or Isaiah 61:1-2 (for example) connect healing with the coming eschatological age (blind see, deaf hear, lame, leap). Jews at the time of Jesus did not allegorize those texts, they really did expect signs from heaven. Pharisees asked Jesus for signs, and explained his power of demons as a sign he too was in league with Beelzebul.
barry: I’m not seeing your point. Even assuming the Jews of the 1st century expected the messiah to do miracles, that doesn’t render unreasonable a theory that one such messiah was only doing fake miracles. But your point would make my argument stronger. Supposing Jesus’ brothers were also caught up in the miracle-working-messiah craze of the first century, then they were even more likely to carefully analyze Jesus’ miracles, so that their persisting in unbelief toward him reasonably implies they discovered those miracles to be fakes.

barry: “most apologists trifle that there’s no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus’ miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying “John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe”
Phil: Well, I did not know you when I wrote that, so you might agree with me . I cannot imagine the brothers not being aware of what Jesus was doing if the villagers in Nazareth knew he was doing miracles; I have no idea what would motivates an “apologist” to say such a thing.
barry: They say it because the further they can distance Jesus from his brothers, the less likely the brothers ever saw the miracles, and therefore, the less likely they would ever have concluded Jesus’ miracles were fake, and therefore, surely some other explanation, which doesn’t require denying the miraculous nature of his miracles, can explain that unbelief….such as the brothers being too crazed with a military-messiah expectation to use their common sense when hearing numerous reliable reports of Jesus doing miracles. I reply that this was an honor-shame society where if Jesus were doing anything that could result in shaming the family name, the family would have great interest in checking out the scandal for themselves to decide whether the actions in question were honorable or dishonorable.

But for now, what do you believe is unreasonable in using a theory of Jesus’ fake miracles to explain the unbelief of Jesus brothers? But if there’s nothing unreasonable about it, well, being reasonable to say Jesus’ brothers concluded his miracles were fake, would in turn make it reasonable to conclude that ALL of Jesus’ miracles were fake (who would trifle that only some of his miracles were fake?). And if it be reasonable to say all of Jesus’ miracles were merely naturalistic tricks of the sort that we know televangelists use to deceive thousands of people, then it cannot be unreasonable to say God would be very unlikely to premise his second covenant upon the words and works of a deceiver (i.e., the skeptical interpretation of Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 makes it reasonable to deny that Jesus rose from the dead).

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