Here we'll do Chs. 7 and 8, since they have, comparably, a lot of relevant material to address. We will of course skip the question-begging exercises Avalos pursues -- which constitutes most of the material anyway. After that, a few more chapters as we go on.

160ff -- Ch. 7 is about academic defenses of violence in the OT. Only one of these theories interests us at all: The one Avalos called the "greater good" theory as advocated by Kaminsky. Here Avalos purposely diverts attention away from one of Kaminsky's points. Kaminsky noted that comparisons of the war against the Canaanites to Nazi tactics is illicit because Israel made no attempt to make war on Canaanites that fled the Promised Land. Avalos apparently isn't bright enough to see the point here, for he responds:

This argument is somewhat puzzling because it presumes that slaughter within the borders of Canaan somehow is a mitigating factor. Would Kaminsky argue that the slaughter that took place within German borders is somehow more justified?

No, what Kaminsky is saying is that analogies to Nazi tactics are false -- nothing more. Avalos is putting words in Kaminsky's mouth as a way of cheaply appearing to win an argument. Nazis pursued genocide, the extermination of a group of people, regardless of their location -- as they went past their own borders to find them. Israel did not. Israel would have done nothing to the Canaanites had they all packed up and left the Promised Land. Israel was not out to commit genocide, period.

Kaminsky also notes that the condemnation of the Amalekites is "phrased in terms of a cosmic battle" between God and the Amalekites. Avalos idiotically finds this in contradiction to Kaminsky's comment about the Canaanites not being pursured past national boundaries, apparently missing the change in subject matter. It is also hard to see why Avalos thinks the use of "cosmic battle" language contradicts battle within national borders. Obviously the actual war against Amalek's people was not "cosmic".

Other than that, Avalos collapses down contexts to a lowest common denominator to arrive at the conclusion that "Nazi policy can be seen as simply one of the most tragic applications of policies enunciated in the Bible." It is just as easy for Nazis to say that the war against them is such an "application" -- but it isn't an argument, except by outrage.

162 -- Kaminsky rightly points out that obedience, not ethnicity, was the mark of the covenant people, using Rahab as an example. Avalos agrees and thereby misses the point. Yes, it was Rahab's obedience in aiding Joshua that enabled her to be spared. Avalos tries to spin this out by suggesting that Rahab was "a victim of effective terrorism" anbd comparing her to Nazi collaborators, which is nothing but spin-doctoring on his part.

Does Avalos ever get beyond argument by outrage? Not here, but we'll see some other place where he tries and predictably fails, later on.

175-6 -- it speaks for Avalos' lack of integrity as a scholar that he says of The Da Vinci Code that it "simply constructs its own version of early alternative Christianities." Avalos also repeats his canards from EOBS that "we do not really know what Jesus taught" and repeats a few of his canards regarding textual criticism (including mentioning 1 John 5:7).

179 -- repeats his point from EOBS about the meaning of "ge" in Matthew 5:5. Also makes the idiotic statement that the Council of Nicea "enshrined the doctrine of the trinity as part of orthodoxy" (see here). The same ignorance of Wisdom theology leads Avalos to say later (199) that the author of Hebrews "does not believe that Jesus is God."

186 -- Avalos ignorantly states, "The fact is that we do not know how or why the books in the New Testament were selected." Really? Do we get the idea that Avalos is NOT a NT scholar here?

187 -- Acts 19:19 is noted, as a place where people burnt books, though Avalos doesn't seem to notice here that people were burning their OWN books.

191 -- repeats his canards from EOBS regarding Luke 14:26.

193 -- repeats his canards re the meaning of "the Jews" in John 8:44.

203 -- Avalos somehow gets out of this:

Luke 14:23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

....that "Christians must compel nonbelievers to enter the kingdom of God" because the king was trying to get his servants to "force people" to come in off the streets into his banquet. The word used can mean that force is used, but context decides that, and Avalos has simply read "force" into the text. The word used more often is used of persuasion by argument or non-violent means, such as in: "Jesus constrained his disciples to get into the ship." (Matt. 14:22)

204 -- simplistic understanding of slavery in the NT era. See here.

216 -- chapter 9 opens with Avalos' same canard-exegesis of Luke 14:26 found in EOBS. It speaks for itself that rather than address qualified scholars such as Malina or Witherington for the opposite view, he takes on -- wait for it -- J. Vernon McGee.

223 -- Yes, it is quite true that true Biblical love can mean violence when necesary for the greater good. This is not news.

226 -- Pointless carp that the Golden Rule is not original. So? This is the sort of point we expect from someone like Dan Barker, not an alleged Biblical scholar. Since when is "originality" a means value for ethics, Hector?

228 -- Usual canard about Deut. 14:26, followed up by complaints about the death of David's infant son using the same faulty exegesis.

230 -- Avalos is actually ignorant enough to think that Rom. 12:14 refers to "violence" of literally pouring coals on someone else's head. See here.

Chapters 10 and 11 are on Islam and will not be addressed here; nor will Ch. 12 on the Nazi Holocaust and ch. 14-17 which are Avalos' discussions of such things as foreign policy. Thus we end with Ch. 13, which is Avalos' attempt to deflect criticisms associated with violence under atheist regimes. This is Avalos' shortest chapter, and has all the bearing of someone who is trying to get the matter out of the way as fast as he can. Avalos' excuse is that Stalin's actions "had as a much to do with politics as with atheism," and he proceeds to lay out Stalin's political motivations. In so doing he dodges the critical point: That the charge is that atheism is what morally permitted Stalin to enact politics as he did, using violence, rather than being a direct motovator of Stalin's actions. In short, whether his atheism led to a view of humanity as tools that meant that he felt no moral compunction against disposing of people as he did. Whether a case can be made against that is another matter, but Avalos has clearly and dishonestly avoided the critical question. Avalos closes the chapter with a bit on alleged communism in the Bible in which he makes the same mistake McKinsey did. He also tries to dodge out of the problem of Ananias' death being for lying, rather than for not giving money, by stating that Acts "still endorses the idea that a promise to enjoin collectivization can be enforced through violence." [332] But it does not matter what the subject of the promise was at all. Therefore, Avalos is deceitfully trying to shift reader attention from the real issue.

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