It's sometimes hard to decide when and if a Skeptic should become a priority to answer. I have to collate a variety of factors, not the least of which is what kind of attention a particular item gets on my own site, and figure out when (not IF) a given critic deserves an answer.

The site designated "Ebon Musings" is fairly at the bottom of the priority register. However, enough time has opened up for me to give some to a response to his response to our first article. Our original comments are in italics; Ebon's response is in bold thereafter, and our new comments follow in normal print (though we will move most material to relevant articles). Ebon has now responded with all three parts said to be planned, though some sort of postscript also seems to be in the works. Nevertheless, as was made clear in the response to part 1 of our response, Ebon is decidedly pedestrian in his Skeptical approach to Bible criticism. As a result, many of these replies are either curt or refer immediately to portions of the Tekton site of which Ebon remains seemingly unaware or uncomprehending. By no means will an attempt be made to correct every one of Ebon's errors, for such an effort would be exhaustive to the point of punishment. Ebon meanders toward the meat of his text in part 2 by wondering "if Mr. Holding was getting tired of responding to me by this point" (the joke is on him, since almost all of the work was done by the time I came to his site) "...[he] does not even mention all of the New Testament contradictions I point out." As with part 1 of Ebon's text, however, his complaints are sufficiently answered in spite of his sometimes-demonstrated inability to appreciate just how effective the answer was.

To begin, between a mix of bravado and charges of obfuscation, Ebon wants to know why I bothered with his site in the first place. The simple answer is that it's simply my policy to respond to any responses regardless of their level. Beyond that, like many who have preceded him, Ebon begins by making some note of what he perceives as my view that his attacks on Biblical errancy are "beneath" me. I have dealt with this charge repeatedly and succinctly: There is so much repetition in the collective arguments of Skeptics that dealing with each echoed attack as though it were fresh is impractical as well as unreasonable, so that I would indeed be fully justified in dismissing Ebon's work out of hand were it not my desire to do otherwise.

Ebon also takes a little space to defend himself against "ad hominem". Ordinarily I would simply refer complaints about ad hominem here, but Ebon makes enough ado about nothing that noting his approach seems worthwhile.

Ebon doesn't seem to understand what is written. I am not suggesting that the brevity of the arguments affects the quality, but that the brevity permits many poor arguments (taken on their own merit or lack thereof) to be presented in a small space. I suggest that in addition to this, Skeptics frequently try to tackle issues that require in-depth study with superficial treatment, and Ebon is no exception. We would have no more patience with someone who was not a Greco-Roman scholar or historian but had the nerve to examine the works of Tacitus and offer definitive statements about it with the same shallow level of analysis. Desiring to make essays "short and memorable" is not a sufficient excuse for incomplete work, and the claim that the issues covered did not "require much writing" is only a further demonstration of Ebon's lamentable lack of scholarship. In a real sense quantity can define quality, though, for to treat a complex topic with brevity will inevitably result in low quality.

Ebon frames the matter without a very important difference: Given my conspicuous posting of a challenge to critics (what has been called the "Chicken Challenge") it seems lacking in courage to produce a response to so many of our points without so much as an e-mail indicating that Ebon had read the material, much less planned to challenge it. Ebon has no such challenge posted; therefore there is no comparison.

We, too, do continual questioning and verification, and it is that very process which enables us to recognize Ebon's work as incomplete and lacking in basic competence. It is not a sufficient excuse to cite lack of time -- if one lacks time, one should not address subjects beyond one's training at all, or at the very least not venture to address such an enormous range of topics in such a short space. We do acknowledge Ebon's admissions of error, but as in fact will be seen his responses only further demonstrate why he has no business commenting on such matters. He is laboring under an illusion that his work is that of someone who is competent and credible and able to justly address the issues concerned. That he does not find our replies "satisfactory" we will see only emphasizes how out of kilter his work is.

Blush though I do to admit it, I have never read the writings of freethought icons such as Ingersoll and Paine. They are on my reading list, but that list is also quite long... Perhaps Mr. Holding should consider that, rather than slavishly follow each other's leads, some freethinkers have done their own work and independently come across these errors and contradictions in religion.

If Ebon has read as much Skeptical material on Usenet as he has written, the influence from Ingersoll and Paine is likely despite his self-professed unfamiliarity with them as primary sources. For that matter, we have been informed that Ebon's Usenet alter ego has at least quoted both Ingersoll and Paine, indicating some exposure to (and potential influence by) their thinking.

Here is a telling assessment:

But not all of them can be explained this way, and for the rest the explanation is simple - the Bible just isn't well written. Many of its authors were uneducated, illiterate desert nomads with a poor grasp of basic literary principles such as plot, theme and characterization, and to make it worse, many of them were more intent on making what they wrote fit their own outlook rather than making it consistent with what was already written. The work of literature they collectively turned out, while contradicting itself in numerous places and lacking in logic and coherence, is the best that could be expected under such circumstances.

Considering that scholars of ancient literature consider the Bible a masterful work, one wonders where Ebon gets the nerve to come up with such an evaluation. As we will see the answer is, "The Ken Smith School of Biblical Exegesis and Plumbing Sciences." You won't find a clue anywhere that Ebon is doing anything but following the McKinsey dictum to "read the Bible like a newspaper" (other than maybe using a concordance now and then).

In few places is the argument from authority so blatantly and fallaciously deployed as it is here. Since many people with suitably impressive letters after their names have declared the Bible to be the greatest thing ever written, how dare I disagree. Of course, these eminent scholars are all Christians who might have just a teensy bit of bias here.

Ebon could use the advice of a site we recently quoted -- a site devoted to analysis of debating tactics:

Argumentum ad verecundiam (argument or appeal to authority). This fallacy occurs when someone tries to demonstrate the truth of a proposition by citing some person who agrees, even though that person may have no expertise in the given area. For instance, some people like to quote Einstein's opinions about politics (he tended to have fairly left-wing views), as though Einstein were a political philosopher rather than a physicist. Of course, it is not a fallacy at all to rely on authorities whose expertise relates to the question at hand, especially with regard to questions of fact that could not easily be answered by a layman -- for instance, it makes perfect sense to quote Stephen Hawking on the subject of black holes.

Under this rubric, our note about what scholars say -- regardless of their orientation, about which Ebon is wrong anyway (the assessment referenced comes from a cross-section of Jewish/Christian/other, liberal/moderate/conservative scholars, as Ebon would know had he had a familiarity with the relevant literature), referring to them is a perfectly acceptable methodology. Note further:

At least in some forms of debate, quoting various sources to support one's position is not just acceptable but mandatory. In general, there is nothing wrong with doing so. Even if the person quoted has no particular expertise in the area, he may have had a particularly eloquent way of saying something that makes for a more persuasive speech. In general, debaters should be called down for committing argumentum ad verecundiam only when (a) they rely on an unqualified source for information about facts without other (qualified) sources of verification, or (b) they imply that some policy must be right simply because so-and-so thought so.

Ebon tries to make it out that our use of scholars is the same as (b), but sorry, wrong number -- it's not that way simply because they "think so" but because they've done the legwork and the study to make a qualified judgment. So Ebon's little "boo game" is nothing but mulluguthering -- if he can't handle the conclusions of scholars who know their stuff, either with his own knowledge or by finding contrary scholarship that directly answers our points, he's just playing games and avoiding the issues when he drops slanderous hints about "bias" and "confessional interest" -- it is just as easy to throw back a charge of "bias" and "interest" for whatever point of view Ebon chooses to promulgate, and accomplishes just as much in terms of actually answering arguments. (An irony in this is that Ebon actually agrees based on our presentation that if accurate, Ken Smith does need to do more research!)

On "reading the Bible like a newspaper":

Ebon's somewhat curious defense here amounts to, "Guilty as charged." He admits to a fundamentalist approach to interpretation, driven by the wish to be relevant (in a way) to his fundamentalist readers, even as he utterly fails to respect the Bible as a document that simply must be interpreted within its context, for lack of doing adequate research. His comments regarding concordances are either a desperate attempt to be cute, or simply another instance of poor interpretation. I said nothing against using them; I spoke of using them alone with no other depth-sources. This is like using a dictionary, and little else, to study American culture. Unquestionably we hold McKinsey's methods in disdain. The use of a concordance sets Ebon somewhat above McKinsey, with no deprecation at all evident on my part - the reverse, if anything (albeit a meager drop of water to a dehydrated salamander).

We said nothing about "gold standard" but if Ebon doesn't choose his targets for refutation on the basis of their relative quality, then his page is subtly infused with just the sort of dishonesty that we imply. Moreover, when he chooses a target that is manifestly of lower quality than another of which he is aware, or does not choose to (or fails to) ascertain whether other answers of better or differing quality might be available in such places as he has made access, it brings his own judgment and honesty into question all the more. (I would not deliver such an accusation at all, actually -- I don't assume that people have time to surf the web for more, but it seems clear that once he knew of this site, he obviously had the responsibility to check our material for answers on the specified issues.)

Ebon goes on to excuse himself for uncharacteristically (?) using ad hominem. Apparently he refers to his webpage alter ego rather than to his Usenet persona (terms such as "fool" "moron" and "idiot" occur commonly in the midst of Ebon's Usenet material, according to search results provided by an associate of mine).

Hereafter materials will be dealt with in the text of essays linked.

On each of these we will go ahead and answer within our essays on these subjects, with four exceptions. First, Ebon less-than-gracefully concedes the issue of the nationality of the Canaanite Woman (Canaanite or Greek?) even though he goes on to say that he still considers the text contradictory while conceding that harmonization is possible! (It might occur to him to see how "Greek" is used in the NT to refer to Hellenized or Greek-speaking persons.) He adds this bit of bravado to salve the wound:

However, my having lost this one battle hardly means Mr. Holding has won the war. It would only take one irreconcilable contradiction to prove the Bible is errant, and I have not just one remaining, but many. In fact, out of all the contradictions I have listed, this is the only one I am willing to concede to Mr. Holding; I contend, and will present arguments for the contention, that in every other example my original page discussed, his attempted explanations fall far short of the mark. The very next contradiction I will discuss, in fact, is a particularly good example of this, and I will show how utterly helpless Mr. Holding and his brethren are in the face of some of the most blatant Biblical inconsistencies. This one I grant you, Mr. Holding, but be not proud.

That's fine. And we in turn give the same answer as we gave to someone who said much the same thing:

I would like to remind the reader that whatever [Ebon] may accomplish in his little corner of the world, there are still tens of thousands of books out there written by people who either are not believers in inerrancy or are indifferent to it for the purposes of their text even if they do believe in it, but that nevertheless support the conclusion that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and that the Bible is an overall reliable historical record of the dealings of God with the people of Israel, and more so as we approach the New Testament. Therefore, all that [Ebon] would have accomplished is to show that the Bible is not inerrant, but he would still have to confront the problem of overall reliability. What are the odds, I ask, that [Ebon] or anyone else could successfully refute the hundreds of other writers and their tens of thousands of books, articles, and speeches that have supported the general reliability the Bible and the divinity of Jesus Christ? What would [Ebon] do, we wonder, to refute the works of the likes of John P. Meier, Ben Witherington, N. T. Wright, or James D. G. Dunn - disbelievers in any sort of inerrancy who nevertheless affirm that the data gives positive proof that Jesus Christ is Lord? It's not too hard to guess that [Ebon] taking on these giants would be much the same as Moe, Larry and Curly taking on Stephen Hawking! My point, then, is that even if [Ebon] should win on any point, or any number of points, he would not have disproven Christianity. In fact he will not have even joined the battle to do so.

Second, on Romans 11:26, Ebon applies his ineptitude to the issue of the fate of Israel. He bristles at our observation that Skeptical critiques appear to exhibit an ignorance of covenant theology, disses present scholarship on Paul, and then immediately switches horses and argues that Jesus' statement that "the children of the kingdom (i.e., the Jews) shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" should be taken as an absolute pronouncement (Matt. 8:10-12). Ebon paraphrases the quotation: "He simply says that the Gentiles' faith is greater than any he has found in Israel and that the Jews are going to Hell, and that is that." Well, there we go again! There is simply no need to take the words of Jesus in that manner, in other words referring to all of the children of the kingdom. If it did, all of Jesus' disciples were hell-bound, as was he, as a Jew, and he was wasting his time ministering to anyone in Judaea. Again, Ebon's complaint rests on his foundation of wooden-literal interpretation and insistence on reading these as "simple, unqualified statements." Next we'll be told that John 2:20 ("Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?") means that all Jews everywhere at the same time, all over the Roman Empire, said this to Jesus.

Third, on the divorce exception rule, Ebon may want to read again for updates: there were provisions for a woman to divorce at the time, and it was hardly necessary anyway (under the same high context I have been berating Krueger for ignoring) for Jesus to go out of the way to say things about it. Ebon's general complaint about the Bible being "anti-woman" is addressed more tha sufficiently here. In terms of actual answer, though, Ebon does even less than Krueger. He writes: "I ask this question in all seriousness. For the edification of all concerned, Mr. Holding, would you mind letting us know how we are supposed to tell when a rule means what it says?" Yes, Ebon: Do your homework. "Is there a single test we can apply?" No, the answers don't come in a can, Ebon. "Or must we trust men like you? If the latter, what assurance do we have that you're not playing fast and loose with God's word?" You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you have doubts, get off your duff and do the homework. Being a crybaby isn't an answer. "Indeed, Mr. Holding, if you are not a Catholic, then how do you justify what seems to be your doctrine that only with help from highly educated people such as yourself can the ordinary, layperson Christian with no special training understand the Bible? Isn't that the specific claim whose disputation led to the Protestant Reformation and ultimately gave rise to the sect you now follow? Have you decided to undo all that?" Actually, no; that isn't exactly what led to the Reformation. And the Reformation could hardly have anticipated a society where people like Ebon would rather spend 8 hours a day in front of the idiot box rather than do something meaningful with their lives. Ebon, get real: There is no way any teaching could be phrased "clearly for future generations" without compromising the understanding of the then-present generation. Even the most general teaching must be applied by examples. Those examples will almost always change as the world changes. Unchanging immediate transcendental application is a logical impossibility. Your laziness is not an excuse. You have the gift of hindsight the ancients could not have had. It shows extreme selfishness to demand that the text be made clear to you at the price of those who lived in the past.

We are also making special note of Ebon's comments about harmonization.

Fourth, we had no article on Babel, the last one noted above, so we will answer here. Ebon again manufactures his contradiction through the magic of wooden-literal interpretation. 1 Corinthians, in context, is referring to God's wish that His church should be organized rather than chaotic (admonition to conduct an orderly church gathering followed by—literal—"God is not of confusion but of peace". From that, Ebon derives a supposedly biblical claim that God does not cause confusion. It’s just another instance of Ebon reading into the text what he wishes to find. There isn’t really any need to explain Babel in terms of the verse in 1 Corinthians, since the context should restrict us to an ecclesiastic/theocratic application.

Then, fresh from making the elementary error of taking a verse out-of-context, Ebon stampedes toward his conclusion with logic trampled under hoof. Based on his literal reading of 1 Corinthians, he concludes that the Bible contradicts reality. Based on the "confusion" of mankind regarding Biblical instruction, he concludes that the author (God) is confused, giving us another peek at his (a)theological argument to the effect that a divinely inspired work cannot be misunderstood. After walloping us with these fallacies, Ebon assures us that once we recognize that atheism is all that is left once logic and reason have scoured the ideological landscape. While I wouldn’t agree that atheism would be all that is left, I would at least agree that little of what Ebon has written could endure even a gentle logical scouring.

Ebon also says, midstream:

Before beginning my commentary on this contradiction, I must point out that Mr. Holding continually resorts to this dishonest and fallacious tactic. In this article...and indeed throughout his site, he makes many statements to the effect that the "skeptics" who reject the Bible are ignorant and uneducated and do so only out of their misunderstanding of it, and that those who truly understand the Bible (viz., Mr. Holding and his Christian apologist brethren) can trivially show their objections to be baseless. But this message is never simply stated. It is invariably delivered with heavy overtones of scorn, condescension and ridicule, rhetorical attacks meant to overawe and intimidate. The meaning implicit for ordinary Christians to take away is that, since Mr. Holding is confident enough to dismiss the other side's arguments so disdainfully, those arguments must genuinely be flawed enough to safely ignore - Mr. Holding's actual substantive reply to them (if any), of course, being entirely beside the point.

How interesting. From here we are re-assured that intelligent Skeptics do exist, though given Ebon's dismal record so far, he hasn't joined the ranks as yet, in terms of this topic. Of course it is only fallacious and dishonest to do this if Ebon assumes that "skeptics" who reject the Bible are educated and know what they are talking about. Which is the very point at issue. As for being intimidated, here's someone to cheer Ebon up and make him feel not so badly persecuted:

Don't be scared, Mr. Ebon! He won't hurt you. Awwwwww!

Now get back to actual substance, Ebon.

Now here are some miscellanies from Part 3. Predictably, Ebon begins by giving himself some congratulations for the way his previous writings have withstood the critique published on the Tekton site. Ebon says that his arguments have been made as well as he wished to make them, and to that I reply that perhaps he has advanced his arguments as well as he is able, which isn’t saying very much. He expresses confidence that "reasonable people" will see how the Tekton counter-replies "fail". If the Tekton replies have failed in the way he suggests, then we should expect Ebon to have little difficulty illustrating that fact through the course of his replies, without any resort to factual inaccuracy or logical fallacy.

Ebon next grumbles, perhaps under the influence of other Skeptics or maybe even hallucinogenic drugs, that my "interest in having an honest and open discussion is doubtful at best" for he says I "shamelessly dodged a challenge of mine, to explain what the Bible would have to say to be errant." On the contrary, the reply above is sufficient and Ebon is unable to meet it. Ebon is simply engaged in the attempt to deflect attention from the failure of his own arguments, the ones for which he just finished trumpeting success. What need is there to extract the allegedly dodged question regarding the demands for a successful errancy argument, if the initial arguments are such a roaring success? The demand is easy: The argument that has no fatal flaw is a good argument. Ebon produces flawed arguments.

Ebon's fine whine is followed by a paragraph moaning over the fact that Tekton does not habitually link to Skeptical materials, tied to the extrapolated generalization that Christians are closed-minded. Ebon achieves some spectacular irony with his loud denunciation of our alleged tendency to loudly denounce the competition! He thinks I am shielding readers, yet I find my readers, intelligent enough to use search engines, writing TO me after they find the Skeptical sites on their own. Once again Skeptics seem to have this problem of not knowing how to find things and assume that everyone else is just as miseducated. Ebon admits grudgingly that I did, on his request, link to his site, but then complains that the one I link from "contains very little actual discussion of the contradictions I present or replies to my counterarguments. Most of that is found on separate pages discussing each individual contradiction, and while the index page hyperlinks to these pages, they do not link back to it." So now Ebon assumes you, the reader, are so mind-numbingly stupid that you who have followed this interchange will not even think to check back to the opening article for the link, and now he also has the temerity and arrogance to suggest that every single page on this site which refers to his site ought to have a link back to his site. This is not only ludicrous, it is obnoxious. Ebon's only reason for this demand is your assumed stupidity: "Anyone who came across one of these individual pages first probably would not know what Mr. Holding was talking about and almost certainly would not be able to find my original site without prior knowledge of it." Anyone who would not know how to search for the site based on inputting unique words would not be swayed by Ebon's raw, unfiltered sewage to begin with. Let me drop people, especially ignorant Skeptics, a hint. In the item labelled nomaster.html, I quote Ebon in full in this paragraph:

But there is a far more serious problem here, one Mr. Holding has not begun to address. Kurios, which is used by Colossians and Ephebians to describe whom servants should obey, is a term of respect that means, among other things, "God"! Isn't this a far more serious matter than what Jesus talks about in Matthew 23? If we are not even to call men "teacher" or "father" - presumably because those titles are reserved to God - how much worse it must be to call one's fellow mortals by a title that does in fact mean God!

Now a hint for the dense. Go to Google.com, and plug in, in quotes, these phrases: "far more serious problem" and "Mr. Holding". Put a space between the two phrases when you type them in the window. Ebon should find the one entry that pops up familiar, since he wrote it. We are sorry, but Ebon's manifest inability to do a competent search does not equate with some idea that we are "hiding" things because we do not engage in tender hand-holding and coverage of Skeptical mental deficiencies. Next we will be asked to give precise directions to every book we use as a source, providing a complete list of every library in the nation that has it, and the location on the shelf. Ebon's crybaby tactics are impressive only to the immature.

As a close, Ebon posed the question of the arrogant freethinker to close part 1: "What would it take to convince you that you were wrong?" That's quite simple, Ebon: It would take more, much more, than you have provided; it would take something completely inexplicable by the various cultural, literary, and social factors we have explored; it would take more homework than from someone who is willing to dismiss scholarship with actual answers but with charges of bias, "straining," or dishonesty. And at present, we see little reason to suppose any such problem will be coming from the direction of Ebon Musings. Ebon only confirms this judgment by accusing us of "sidestepping" and pretending our answer is no more than "More than you've provided." It is far, far more than that, and a hayseed proclamation comparing our answers, grounded in serious scholarship, dismissing "study [of] Ancient Near Eastern languages and modes of rhetorical expression" as equal to "tilt[ing] the page at a forty-five degree angle away from your face and kind of squint at it with one eye closed" only manifests Ebon's tremendous inability to counter our answers.

We now move to Ebon's summing up of the situation as he assumes his throne and dons his crown, unaware he is seated on a lavatory basin. After exerting substantial time and effort on his poor attack on the Bible (regarding inerrancy), Ebon weighs in with his summary of how he did in response to the Tekton reply. The result is yet more vintage Ebon. Ebon avows that he continues to disagree with the Tekton position on inerrancy, and he gives a reason why: "…if I had to identify a single flaw of his that was primarily responsible for this, it would be this: his persistent and arrogant refusal to ever admit defeat." So, I'm wrong because I won't admit that I'm wrong? I truly don't follow the reasoning. Maybe Ebon is simply admitting that he has permitted his own bias to cloud his evaluation of the exchange—yet he goes on to say that (I) persist in maintaining that I'm correct "no matter the evidence arrayed against (me), no matter how soundly (I am) trounced, no matter how hopeless (my) case is." Ebon simply neglected to provide any examples of suitably contrary evidence, sound (or otherwise) trouncing, or a hopeless case.

Fittingly, Ebon next segues into the dismal mode of attack in alleging that style of the Tekton rebuttal is un-Christian. May someone go to Sam's Club and buy him a vanload of tissues. Then Ebon offers advice on persuasion based on his own experience. We appreciate it like we appreciate a horde of ticks while carrying a bag of bloodwurst. Tekton is what it is and it is what it is for reasons that are valid. Humility is a construct of modern individualism; the ancients knew their strengths and limitations and proclaimed both unabashedly, as do I. There is little sense in wasting time pretending you might be wrong or right if you are not. If you want PC sensitivity, or the parlance of modern debates conducted by members of the sorrowful victim culture of today, go the Glenn Miller's excellent site, which Ebon can't seem to handle either. As for Tekton, attacking the tone addresseth not the arguments.

Almost beneath notice is Ebon’s two-faced tactic of attempting to discredit the Tekton arguments via his own personal attack: "His repeated use of ad hominem attacks, his sneering demeanor, his contemptuous and dismissive tone, his scorn and derision of anyone who differs from him - such patterns of expression permeate his site, and are often deployed, as above, to intimidate opponents and so camouflage arguments that are patently weak, faulty, or irrelevant." Absent examples of weak, faulty, or irrelevant arguments, and absent actual proof that his way is "better" in the long term, we are left with Ebon’s personal attack. Not that he delivers the taste of his own medicine as he supposes. If Ebon needs practice, we recommend he work for several years in a prison or frequent another culture that knows that riposte-challenge isn't a contest to see who can sow the most mulch and hasn't fallen victim to the PC rage. And I do not mean "personal computer". He says as well:

In regards to more substantive material, it is my impression that Mr. Holding essentially has only one argument, only one defense to skeptical attacks and charges of contradiction. This defense recurs throughout his site, phrased in a variety of different ways and appearing in a number of different guises, but it always boils down to the same thing. This defense, as I have pointed out before, is essentially, "The Bible doesn't mean what it says."

The above is actually Ebon’s roundabout way of describing his persistent tendency to approach the biblical literature with a wooden-literal rule of interpretation. The text means whatever it means to him, scholarship and textual considerations be eternally damned. Ebon carries forward the illogical legacy of McKinsey, and spends a few paragraphs addressing specific examples through ridicule instead of reason. Apparently he thinks that when I speak of such things as "dischronologized narrative" or "proverbial literature" or a "negation idiom", I am taken to be making these things up as I go along. Implicitly he compares this to alleged use of similar tactics by corporations in bookkeeping, though in the realm of mathematics, such results would be unlikely to obtain, and Ebon may actually be passing off a satirical article as reporting the "real thing"! Ebon, who labels me a fundamentalist, is in fact himself a "fundamentalist atheist" -- a member of the very species he decries, but wearing spots rather than stripes. When Ebon speaks of one "viewing the world through any lens but their own rigid preconceptions, and removing their ability to ever admit error or uncertainty in any matter of theological significance," he describes himself, as one hiding under piles of sandbags, to a T plus.

Ebon, as he has been wont to do throughout the course of his "rebuttal", pats himself on the back for knowing what I would say in response to his simplistic approach to the Bible, and well he should know since it needs to be said so frequently to Bible commentators of the Skeptical persuasion, and he uses his allegation of prior knowledge as the excuse to trot out his tired argument to the effect that a requirement of knowledge in association with Bible interpretation places Christianity outside the reach of most supposed Christians or obscure to all persons, and that it is indeed logically possible to make a work that is understandable on every point at all times to all people. The former is complete nonsense, of course, and that Tekton has reached so many and enlightened them is proof that it is nonsense; the latter is demosntrably false by the inability of men to come close to producing such a document in spite of education and intelligence. Exhaustive accurate knowledge of what the Bible says specifically is beyond the reach of most people, certainly. Basic knowledge of sin, who Jesus was, and what he accomplished is quite simple, and is sufficient to lead to salvation. Demanding "more recent prophets" is a demand of laziness and also begs the question that I am not myself (along with others like Glenn Miller) in some sense fulfilling that function for Ebon and others. (What else does Ebon have to do? Watch Seinfeld reruns?) Ebon’s knowledge, in particular, is shown to be insufficient to identify his goal: A documented Bible contradiction. Apples, meet oranges. (And I'll toss Ebon a bone he should have chewed before: Yes, I do not pass judgment on other religions I know nothing about. That is why I did years of research into Mormonism before taking it on. If he thinks another candidate worthy of consideration, let him tell me why rather than throwing examples in the air like hayseed. Is he really suggesting Scientology as a serious alternative? And is he really so ignorant as to think that most conservative Christians are equitable to KJV Onlyists? Perhaps he needs to read the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy a little more closely!)

In closing, Ebon still wants to know what would convince me that I am wrong concerning the Bible. The answer remains the same: A coercive, non-fallacious argument. In other words, far more than he provides, and ever will be able to provide merely by throwing out citations and yelling, "Oh yeah, what if I read THIS without respect to contextual study, huh?" as though he has created some slippery slope for me, all the while not realizing that it is he who is being sucked in by the dragon up the hill, not that I am sliding down. That he foolishly endorses the work of Earl Doherty, and that of Finkestein and Silberman (extremists on the least radical end of an extremist movement that is the victim of modern PC concerns) tells us enough of his authority.