These days I reserve my ammunition for those who might be considered the cream of the crop of the atheist world. Not that this means that the selected targets have any better or newer arguments (they don't), but that they possess some quality (indefinable or otherwise) that has made them the darlings of the atheist world. Years ago, Dennis Ronald MacDonald's Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark was the one book that was making atheists irrigate their drawers; but as of this moment (December 2007) it is mostly on the ash heap. The same fate undoubtedly awaits the work of Hector Avalos, including his latest, the extended temper tantrum that is The End of Biblical Studies.

Avalos is to be categorized in the same vein as Robert Price, Bart Ehrman and Gerald Larue. He is a true and qualified Biblical scholar, and that is not to be denied him. Nevertheless, book knowledge in his hands is as nitroglycerin in the hands of the village idiot. Avalos speaks often outside his expertise, and it shows badly. He either purposely presents only part of the truth, or else is ignorant -- for most people of this sort, I tend to assume the latter is true (I'd rather make an accusation of intellectual than moral failure as a hypothesis), but because Avalos is supposed to be a qualified scholar, it is harder to dismiss the former so readily.

It will become clear, however, why I have chosen my title as I have. Avalos is, like Price and Ehrman, of the worst sort of "fundy atheist" -- an atheist who has not abandoned the black and white mentality of the fundamentalist, and so continually errs in his assessments of evidence and arguments, or else feels that it is perfectly fine to manipulate the truth in service of what he thinks the greater good. I have also chosen the title and front-page illustration for a reason, in this vein. Avalos was once a child evangelist, and he remains one to this day: An evangelist, for atheism, with the same fervor and willingness to manipulate emotions and/or truth; and a child, in that his fundamentalist mindset, still retained, has prevented him from truly growing up, being honest, and thinking critically.

To the end of equipping readers to be prepared for those who come to them wearing Hector Avalos T-shirts, we therefore begin a series on his works as follows.

The End of Biblical Studies. In this book, Avalos called for an end to Biblical studies (obviously), not entirely, but "as we know it" [15]; to be replaced by a form of study that undermines the authority and authenticity of the Biblical text. We will cover chapters as follows:
• Introduction
• Translations
• Textual Criticism -- I will comment only on the aspects of NT criticism with which I am familiar
• Archaeology -- no commentary, as this subject is outside my expertise. Please note that this does not mean that I believe Avalos' arguments in this and later chapters I bypass could not be overturned and devastated by someone competent in the relevant fields. I have good reason, given Avalos' poor judgment, to think otherwise.
• Historical Jesus
• Aesthetics -- no commentary, as I have no interest in defense of this field
• Bibliolatry -- no commentary, as I have no interest in defense of the five persons Avalos attacks, However, readers may find Loren Rosson's comments of interest here
• Academia, SBL, Publishing Complex -- some brief comments on each of these three chapters, and the conclusion
• You can discuss these articles on TWeb here.

Addendum: Tekton guest writer Matt Pauslon, an attendee of Harvard, comments on Avalos' claim to be a "textual scholar."

• Fighting Words. In this book, Avalos lays out a thesis of religion as a source of unnecessary violence. Some chapters I will not cover for obvious reasons (eg, the ones on Islam).
  • Introduction through Chapter 6
  • Chapter 7 through Chapter 13

More? Maybe so...