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Some weeks ago a reader asked me to look at the work of one Kenneth Harding. I saved several of his items and then promptly forgot about them. You need only see below to know why. After a while these Skeptics get so much like each other, and advance so many of the same arguments and uninformed Oscar Mayer products, that they become indistinguishable. We are inevitably reduced to writing articles that consist of little more than a list of "see heres" with links.

And so it is with Harding. A sampling of what I found on his site:

• An article titled, "A Challenge to All Christians," challenging us to follow Mark 16:18 and pick up serpents and drink poison. After repeating this challenge 30 different ways, Harding reprints an item about how a snakebite killed a minister, then runs over what he thinks the excuses will be: The minister was not a true believer...he should not have tested the Lord...it applied only to the Apostles...it's figurative. He somehow misses the one about this verse not belonging in Mark's Gospel, which shows a lot of nerve in light of Harding's accusations against religious charlatans. Charlatans of information like Harding are quite as harmful.
• An article on "The Canon of the Bible" in which Harding claims that:

  There has been one reoccuring claim by Christians regarding the bible; I have heard it from nearly every Christian who corresponds with me. It is the statement that the bible, being a perfect book, written by forty writers all inspired by God, has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

  Perhaps only Christians from Weeboland are writing to Harding; that is quite possible, since the intelligent ones would be laughing too hard to send him any mail. Unchanged for thousands of years? Write me before you write Harding so that I may disabuse you of that notion, which isn't found in premier statements on inerrancy like that nice one from Chicago. Beyond that Harding offers to "bring to light" a history of the Bible that is pretty much a selection like the sort we answer here on the Canon. I.e., that debate existed means we can't be sure there is a definitive canon; plain old lists of non-canonical books with the usual, "Well, why isn't this included, huh???" and no critical analysis; the usual about "lost books" that for all Harding or we know was someone's grocery list; the canon was decided merely by vote and by unqualified persons who presumably just came off the street from selling hot dogs; provinicialist comments about how the printing press solved all our transmission problems and stopped that awful conspiracy that was afoot ("Before [Gutenberg], the bible was copied by hand, onto scrolls and parchments, which could be easily altered to fit the needs of those in power. It was malleable, easily altered-- no one could hinder the early Church from adding or subtracting verses at their will. No one will ever know just how much of the biblical text was alterned [sic], deleted, and rewritten while it was in handwritten form." Sure, try this on for size.) Harding then repeats the entire third chapter of Remsberg's book on the Bible, which means you may now throw away all of those works by Metzger, MacDonald, and the other scholars who obviously spend their days playing with Legos and using coloring books.

• In an article on Jesus' birth, the usual about the birth narratives, the census, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and so on -- much thanks to one source, Robert Ingersoll, whose grasp of the ancient world certainly exceeded that of, say, Raymond Brown (Death of the Messiah) or Craig Keener. To his credit Harding updates Ingersoll a bit (and also corrects Thomas Paine), but not worth any salt. Here's some comments worthy of the Award for Miseducation About Social Realities in the First Century:

  The claim that Herod the Great, who had been firmly established by Antony in his government, and who had full-grown male heirs to succeed him, was afraid that the baby of an obscure Nazareth carpenter would supplant him in his kingdom is enough to cause a Puritan to laugh on Sunday. Had Herod issued such a decree, his family would have probably confined him in a madhouse.

  Given that Herod had already killed some of those heirs, that's hardly any issue. As for fear of a baby, well, no, not the baby itself -- Herod feared a revolt with the baby as a centerpiece; it could sit there and goo goo ga ga while the revolting peasants (stung deeply by Herod's repressive taxation and tyranny) did the work. Add to that that the magi were likely reps of the Parthians (deadly enemies of Rome), and that there were pending rumors of a coming king (helped by the appearance of Halley's Comet in 12 BC, and that magi were known to predict the coming of rulers -- Keener, Matthew commentary, 101ff), and that Herod was already paranoid by nature, and that past rulers had been known to kill descendants to keep their own throne, and that Herod ruled by warfare and politics rather than by birth thus making his claim less "valid" in the eyes of the ancients than one "born king of the Jews", and that Herod also rewarded prophets who validated his reign, the real question needs to be, which reform school does Harding need to go to? Meanwhile his mysterious goombah Christians are replying that the answer is that:

  Some apologists say that the killing of the infants by Herod was consistent with the way Romans did things. Well, Herod wasn't a Roman. He was descended from a family of Idumaean origin. He came to Rome when he was 33 years old, where Antony, who had been a friend and ally of Herod's father Antipater, persuaded the Senate to declare him King of Judea.

  Oh, sure -- and because Paul was Jewish he could never use Greco-Roman rhetorical techniques. Herod's acts were neither Roman nor Idumean -- they were "Paranoidkingian". But this kind of idiotic reasoning ("Because Herod was Idumean, he would not do things a Roman way, even though he was in Rome and was a client-king of the Romans, he could not have been influenced by them at all") tells you why I can't take Skeptics like Harding seriously. To close he objects about Mark calling Herod a "king" which we reply to here and here.

• The usual screed on bug legs we answer here. As an answer Harding plays the "quote the English translations to prove your point" game. Someone did give him a similar answer, but they said front legs rather than back, which is wrong to do. Then Harding provincializes that God should be more concerned with things other than what we eat, which shows lack of care over what the ancients regarded as important as noted here.
• The usual about Jesus not returning -- Harding knows the old genea reply, but seems never to have heard of preterism as an option. He'd rather quote Ingersoll.
• Under the title, "Do Any First Century Historians Mention the Jesus of Christianity?" Harding re-repeats all the standard fluff refuted here, with added fluff about "hearsay" from later historians than Jesus which has yet to itch any professional historian I have seen (see also here for a corrective on "hearsay"), added conspiracy-mongering about documents being forged, and Remsberg and J. M. Robertson the Josephan and Tacitean scholars (er -- NOT!) as primary sources. Plus of course the use of Remsberg's list.
• We have a slander piece on David that starts with this commentary of provincial fantasy:

  The father of David wad Jesse, an Ephrathite of Bethlehem-Judah. Jesse had either eight sons (1 Samuel 16:10-11, and 17:12) or only seven (1 Chronicles 2:13-15), and David was either the eighth son or the seventh-- we're not sure. You might think this a difficult way to begin, but only if you rely on your own mortal intellectual faculties, or if you have been misled by fallible, human arithmetic. If you are in any doubt, consult a qualified theologian, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference between eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith, by the help of the spirit. Arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement, one which all true believers should avoid. As proof of this, I point out that the proposition three times one equals one is a fundamental article of the Christian faith.

  Gosh, yes. Prayer, faith, and the spirit all led me to the idea that we have a copyist error with a six having been mistaken for a seven in 1 Samuel. After all, it takes an eye of faith too see that a six and a seven differ in Hebrew only in a small horizontal stroke at the bottom; see here for a picture. I wouldn't say that arithmetic is an infidel requirement, but non-knowledge of textual criticism apparently is, to say nothing of the same of of Trinitarianism and borrowing stale arguments from informed sources like Paine and Jefferson. After summarizing as slanderously as possible David's heritage (i.e., "David's great grandmother was the holy harlot Rahab..." -- my, but Harding is a forgivable sort! Anyone in his own line not perfect in virtue that we can slander him with?) Harding offers a spun-out life-summary which includes reference to stuff we have addressed here and here and here (with the latter, showing tremendous sociological miseducation on the process), and includes an interpretation of David's guerilla warfare against Philistines as "stealing" and killing innocent people (Harding is apparently up on that politically correct liberation theology) and his tactical fabrications to Achish as a case of immoral lying. Make sure you're honest with the Nazis about Jews in your cellar, and forget about being an agent for the CIA.

  Harding's general bits about ancient warfare are addressed in a different context here, as is his rosy view of the actions of the Amalekites ("The Amalekites had captured and carried off everything from Ziglag, but they do not seem to have mistreated or killed any of their enemies. David was less merciful. He pursued them, recaptured the spoil, and spared not a man of them, save 400 who escaped on camels." News flash: In the context of the ancient world, David's actions were more merciful because he didn't leave the people poor and penniless to let them slowly starve to death!), and his bit on Uzzah and the Ark (the usual) is addressed in this item. He does well to accuse David on his actions related to Bathsheba, but harps the usual canard that comes of skeptical un-research:

  After this king David was even more cruel and merciless than before. Previously he had systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of Moab; now he sawed people with saws, cut them with axes, and burned them in brick-kilns. Yet of this man God said he "did that which was right in mine eyes."

  Um, hey? That textual reading has since been corrected to note that David put these people to work with saws, axes, etc. -- as if anyone in the ancient world would have thought it a wise use of resources to dull such instruments that could be used to chop wood for survival, or to use ovens that were better used making actual bricks. Harding then notes how nasty Dave's kids were (we hope Harding's kids grow up to be perfect for his sake), drops the sort of hints we address here about God repenting, mellows after the usual individualist fashion about punishment on people as a collective (It's not "Strangely wonderful are the ways of the Lord!" but, "Strange to a modern, individualist provincialist are the ways of a collectivist society!") and about Dave's census with added stuff we address here. Harding closes the article with a straining harp asking why we don't admire people like the "witty Voltaire" instead (whose i.e., patent racism is indeed far more admirable, or course), then raps his gavel down on David as being guilty of violating his modern moral standards. All of this from one who would be dead within hours in the ancient world because he wouldn't know how to even ask where the bathroom was without offending anyone.

• We have an item on the "Absurdity of the Exodus" with all the usual sorts of claims answered here and here.
• A huge item on the "Authenticity of the Old Testament" that makes its way by using such modern authorities as a 19th century writer named Kuenen and Biblical scholars like Remsberg. Just so folks know that Biblical scholarship didn't freeze in time when Harding apparently thinks it did, we answer that here.
• A silly item called "Jesus was pro-choice" that argues this because Jesus accepted the law, which includes Exodus 21:22-5.

  And that's the story from yet another Skeptic who is unskilled and unaware of it. It's clear why in this case: Harding apparently thinks scholarship stopped with Remsberg and that Remsberg actually offered scholarship. I think we'd get better scholarship from the Harding who broke her skate laces.