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Editor's Note: Due to rampant misbehavior by the subject, the name of the Skeptic being addressed has been replaced with the moniker "Skeptic X" and a link to his article has been removed because of his refusal to respect my use of a pseudonym.

At this point Skeptic X is clearly scrambling hard enough to make quiche out of all the eggs in Vancouver. (Racist joke against Canadians; figure it out: they have Canadian bacon...get it?) It seems somehow curious that Skeptic X always chooses to reply to our materials where we have been highlighting what are the least embarrassing of his errors. And who can blame him? Skeptic X has made more errors in basic reading than John McEnroe has foot faults. We've gigged him for such absurdities as reading this...

I pay for this site, so correspondent with the 90% fluff ratio I demand that Skeptic X pay for 90% of the costs of hosting any item he submits -- whether he meets challenge #1 above or not. Obviously the amount would have to be determined based on going rates for server space and the length of the article written. I also want payment for 8 years in advance (about the time I have the tektonics.org name reserved). Based on Skeptic X's behavior I am not so sure he'll be around that long before giving himself a coronary, and I think the security is a good idea.

...as a demand that he would have to pay for 90% of this entire website. So who can blame him for shifting gears, abandoning the Land Promise debate in midstream, just before we highlighted his most egregious errors in that venue (with a promise -- ha ha! -- to get back to it later, which we are sure he will, when he is sure the Loyal Order of Skeptic Xites has forgotten his previous mistakes)? And who can blame him for keeping on track with the usual dirty debate tactics meant to throw the reader off the scent, dazed, and confused -- well, his readers, at least, as opposed to intelligent ones? Case in point: We've noted Skeptic X's tendency to interrupt replies in even mid-sentence with paragraphs-long diversions filled with nothing but pep rallies and/or repeated arguments that are answered before or after the places where he addresses. He does the same in his latest (ahem) "response" on the Abiathar issue, doing his best to let the reader know that we supposedly emasculated his arguments on the Land Promise issue (which would be rather like saying we took muscles away from Pee Wee Herman, as it were). So it's just another shell game from the fou-fou ring, another "hey never mind how I got beat there, look at this" routine, played back and forth to fool the gullible skeptical reader who would be impressed if Skeptic X responded to an argument about Jewish Temple rituals by covering himself with purple paint and singing the doxology backwards, or who would cheer and jump up and down like Herman Munster and yell "Good answer!" even if Skeptic X told Richard Dawson that "thirteen" was one of the top three answers to the question, "Other than hamburgers, what is a favorite food at hamburger joints?"

"As for buying time," Skeptic X snorts, "I am just patiently and steadily working to reply to [Holding]." What this means deprived of spin is, "I am desperately trying to catch up to Holding's output, and need some excuse to say why and put it in a favorable light." And he says: "Since I don't do hackwork, I put substance into my replies, obviously much more substance than [Holding] can handle, and so he snips and skips, bobs and weaves, and ducks and dodges his way to almost total evasion." As yet Skeptic X hasn't succeeded in showing how any "skipped" argument of his affects his case -- they have ended up being either arguments we agreed with in principle, and so would of course not want to or try to refute (i.e., the graveclothes left at the tomb as a sign that something had happened to the body of Jesus), or else were arguments that were contextually and in principle refuted by other arguments we made (see below on epi). Not that we expect Skeptic X to have the breadth of critical thinking to figure this out. It's his perception that if you miss one word he says, you're part of a Grand Paranoia Plot to rob him of his dignity. All right, we'll agree doesn't do hackwork. It's obvious he's too slow to do that anyway; "awheckwork" or "hack and cough work" would be a better description. He probably does read everything slowly and carefully at least a dozen times, and it is only then that he makes boneheaded reading errors like thinking the above meant I wanted him to pay for 90% of my entire website. Is that better? As for putting substance in his replies, no doubt he does, and no doubt some of those "substances" are hallucinogenic, and that is why he keeps hoisting himself on his own petard and coming up with nonsensical complaints to try to keep the ball rolling. Take this little inanity for example, imported direct from the Land of Nod:

By the way, [Holding] is doing his best to hide his second-round reply from his readers, because he tacked it onto his first reply, so the two parts don't have separate URLs. I had heard that he had tried to answer my rebuttal of his Abiathar explanation, but when I went to his site, I couldn't find it listed in "What's New." This page simply mentioned "another effort" or Abiathar, but when the link is clinked, his first article comes up. The reader's first assumption is that "another effort" on Abiathar was his "Dear Abiathar" article. I happened onto what I am answering now when I finally went back to the URL of his first reply to see if he had a link there. Since he puts his links at the end, I scrolled down and finally noticed that his second reply had been tacked onto his first. It's confusing, to say the least, and I suspect that this is the way that he wants it, so that some of his own readers will react as I did and think that there is nothing new at this sight.

Well, now, isn't that a sad case of technology disorder. You hear that, folks? Poor was confused. The man who doesn't know to search for titles of articles using Google is CONFUSED. It took him weeks to figure out that all you had to do was scroll down (it took me all of five pops on the Page Down key) to see the rest of my reply. And he assumes you must have been too dumb to figure it out, too. Now why didn't he have that flash of brilliance to scroll down from the very begining? Hey, Jude: If was so goldurned confused, why didn't he write me and say, "Hey, Holding, there's no new material here! Where is it? Did you mistype something in the URL? Etc." It's not like it's beyond his abilities to drop us a line. After all, he had no problem writing me and asking for a copy of JPH_WRE2.html (part 2 of our Land Promise reply) since he had no unzip program -- hey , ever think of saving stuff to your hard drive? And for the record, not one of MY readers has had any problem figuring out this simple task which apparently thinks is more difficult and confusing than a Rubik's Cube, and when it gets down to it, I haven't even heard from any skeptical readers who had a problem either, not even a single one of Skeptic X's fans who would be all too ready to pitch a fit about such alleged evasion if they spotted it. (And sorry guys: too late to back up your Master by saying NOW that you were confused. Don't try it.) The real deal: Skeptic X is manufacturing excuses for the sake of scoring points, not even bothering to check matters before he spouts off at the mouth for polemical advantage. Either that, or he's far from as bright as I anticipated, yet again. Maybe both are true.

But then again, can't escape all the mistakes. We noted his error in thinking that we "argued that the priests expected Jesus' body to ascend." Within a split second Dr. Jekyll shows up and Skeptic X says, "If I misread [Holding] on the matter of what the priests expected, I will gladly admit that I did when I reply to that part of [Holding]'s attempt to explain why the disciples were not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead." While you're at it, , be ready to admit that you misread on the above about paying for 90% of my website, and when that's over we've got a passel of other boo-boos and presumptions for you to 'fess up on and stain that spotless record of perfection with. You'll find them in other replies to you we have made so far. But don't expect that to be the end of it. We've picked up one of 's Favorite Dirty Debate Tactics, the old Bring It Up Over and Over and Over Again, i.e., the argumentum ad nausaeum, and we'll be using it as often as he does, if not more often. You betcha. will be 187 years old and sitting on a park bench, and I'll be 152 years old and walking up with a bullhorn as he throws the pigeons some cynaide-laced popcorn, and I'll yell, "Hey, , what about the time you thought I wanted you to pay for 90% of my website, huh?" Like Toyota, he asked for it, and now he's got it. (Just in case, though, he reminds the skeppies that, "What the priests may or may not have expected is not crucial to the debate, because there is ample evidence that, on the grounds of what the gospels claim that the disciples heard Jesus say about his resurrection, they should have been anticipating it." Wrong number again, says the operator: What the priests expected was one of the MAJOR points was after, since he used their expectation as a bubba club against the stupidity of the disciples, who he supposes should have known better than the priests. of course knows how to play the confidence game of pretending he really didn't need an argument he originally invested a whole rip-pack of verbiage in -- he does it a barrel of times this round, too -- but you can be guaranteed we won't leave it alone, and that he won't just drop it and will keep defending it as long as the riposte stays fresh and so does he!)

And so, after a brief denial, again, of his previous demands over the eons that we quote EVERYTHING he writes, we get down to Abiathar. We'll even section things off with hard returns so that won't be as confused as he normally is. Maybe that and some gingko baloba will help.

I noted 's admission that "high priest" is not used as a title in the OT. He seems to want to deny that it was an "admission" by him in the context of this debate, for he refers to "articles and prepared debate notes" in which he "pointed out that there was no office of 'high priest' in the Old Testament..." I don't doubt he has such articles and notes. I also don't doubt that he will pretend not to have had them when it suits his purposes. Skeptic X has already admitted that he "holds back" things like a "smart" debater should so that his opponent will "hang himself" (though the more likely reality is that he doesn't hold back anything, and the whole "holding back" routine is yet another con game to instill confidence in the gullible skeptical masses who hold Skeptic X to be Pope), so we stick with calling this an "admission" on his part, especially when it is a fact that comes out in our favor. Squeezing admissions out of Skeptic X is like squeezing a nickel out of Scrooge, and obviously results in just as much squealing.

Or, of course, could just admit to his own use of such prejudicial language and stop playing the same game. I wouldn't count on it. Debate games are to Skeptic X as LSD is to Timothy Leary.

X asks us, "Is it your position that the office of high priest did not exist in Old Testament times?" Since already knows and admits that the title did not exist in OT times, and since we agreed with him, this is roughly the 64 cent question. But let's spell it out so he doesn't think we want him to pay for 90% of this site again:

1. The title of "high priest" did not exist in OT times, as designated within the official religio-political structure endorsed by the Roman overlords in the NT period.
2. Some or most of the duties of that "high priest" did exist and were performed by persons in the OT period.
3. To therefore ask whether the office existed is a non-specific question in context.

X may consider trying to ask better questions next round. He may actually win $1.28.

It takes a bit for to get back to substantive arguments; if he disagrees we'll wait for an explanation of why any of the blather edited here emasculates his arguments. But in the meanwhile he pulls the same old Interrupt in Mid-Sentence with Long Paragraphs Routine. We are quoted, " then defies us to 'cite a single passage of scripture that even implied that Abiathar had any special prominence at the time of the incident at Nob.' We don't have to." And at that point cuts in with a two-paragraph diversion, prior to dealing with our reasons for regarding Abiathar as a prominent priest for whom, an appeal by Jesus would have been useful in context. See how the game is played? It's the equal to a scumbag radio talk show host interrupting his guest in mid-sentence, or hanging up on a caller who is tanning his hide, or to Phil Donahue interrupting his guest every 3 seconds to make a smart remark. Too bad, -- in this game it's a written contest, and by exposing that tactic, we render it useless for all but the gullible on your end of the mike. Now then, what does Skeptic X offer after this interruption?

• One baloney sandwich: "[Holding] is saying that he now realizes... that there are no passages in the Old Testament that attribute to Abiathar any special fame for being a 'renowned priest whose name invoke[d] honoring the law,'..." I ain't saying nothing of the sort, beyond Skeptic X's fantasy state he got into eating mushrooms again. The passages in the OT which relate Abby's stature and time in office, under Israel's greatest king, are the very thing that relate this special fame and renown, and we pointed this out clearly enough for Stevie Wonder to see from 20,000 feet without a magnifying glass. This is just playing that same debating game we gigged him on before:
  • Opponent argues step A in his argument.
  • Interrupt, as often as possible, to point out that this does not answer for problems posed to some or all of steps B, C, D, E, and F, and strongly emphasize that these problems haven't been solved yet. Also throw in any side comments you can on different topics.
  • Throw up brief answer to what opponent says on step A.
  • Opponent argues step B in his argument.
  • Interrupt, as often as possible, to point out that this does not answer for problems posed to some or all of steps A, C, D, E, and F, and strongly emphasize that these problems haven't been solved yet. Also throw in any side comments you can on different topics.
  • Throw up brief answer for what opponent says on step B.
  • Repeat for steps C through F.

  Bottom line, which Skeptic X has yet (pay attention: by the order of his reply) to address: We have all the "textual evidence" that is needed to show that Abby was a renowned priest, a real gung ho-er for the law: he occupied a position of stature for an extended period under Israel's greatest king. By extension, his job performance -- as one who would have to know and implement the law, and be an example for the nation -- must have been immensely satisfactory. That's all that is needed. Though Skeptic X will play this harp of "textual evidence" again and again and again in various forms as we proceed, ringing up his previous arguments as though we never addressed them, it still needs tuning and he's still got his foot caught in the tuba. And darned straight -- we will nip Skeptic X's little debate game in the bud and as before edit out his constant repetitions and bringing up of arguments which we address and refute in a different stage. That's the real reason Skeptic X is gnawing on his socks right now.

Since we know as well that it will come up, we'll remind the reader again that this shifting game is indeed nothing but a cheap debate tactic, and that if Skeptic X wants to address one of our later arguments, he is quite capable of bringing it forward and addressing it out of turn. That he does not do so shows that he is foundering along with nothing but old debating tricks to keep him afloat. As we noted in another place:

Ever notice how Skeptic X likes to repeat things like the Deut. 9 argument 873,392,493,929 times? No doubt he will say his argument against us about, i.e., Deut. 9 does stand -- but if it does, why doesn't he bring up his response to what we say about it from the very beginning? It's clear Skeptic X knows how to do this -- his reference to Cross was an example of bringing matters forward from the very beginning. After that he referred back to what Cross had to say several times. So Skeptic X knows how to do it; but we say, with Deut. 9 and all else, all of the repetition has another purpose, which the site describes to a T:

Nonetheless, this is a very popular fallacy in debate, and with good reason: the more times you say something, the more likely it is that the judge will remember it. The first thing they'll teach you in any public speaking course is that you should "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, then tell 'em, and then tell 'em what you told 'em." Unfortunately, some debaters think that's all there is to it, with no substantiation necessary! The appropriate time to mention argumentum ad nauseam in a debate round is when the other team has made some assertion, failed to justify it, and then stated it again and again. The Latin wording is particularly nice here, since it is evocative of what the opposition's assertions make you want to do: retch. "Sir, our opponents tell us drugs are wrong, drugs are wrong, drugs are wrong, again and again and again. But this argumentum ad nauseam can't and won't win this debate for them, because they've given us no justification for their bald assertions!"

We have noted here, as a matter of pouring Pepto Bismol, that Skeptic X's endless repetitions are indeed nought but a case of trying to score debate points -- and we are right. That is exactly why he doesn't like us answering his repetitions with repetitions of our own.

Skeptic X plays that harp for a few more strings, and we don't get back to any other sort of argument until we get to where I said:

Now our man Skeptic X wastes a great deal of time to start on nitpicky comments about non-data. When I note that Ahimelech may have ranked high as well, Skeptic X proffers the comments that, "Ahimelech was the priest whom David dealt with at the time of the incident. If he had not 'ranked highly' at the time, then surely he would not have made such an important decision on his own when he gave aid to David but would have consulted with whoever was the 'ranking' priest." Well, that's anachronizing with fond memories again. We have absolutely no idea what sort of rank and authority structure was held by the priests of this day;** we do not know how much freedom low-ranking priests were given, and in what circumstances. I do consider it likely that Ahmy ranked high, but it's not one of those sure-fire, we-got-his-drivers-license-and-resume-on-file things, so it's hardly an issue to say that he may have been high-ranking. Short of uncovering the Nob Org Chart, or the Nobbie Operations and Procedures Manual, we simply don't know and have no further evidence. What's happening here is that Skeptic X is furiously desperate for anything he can try to catch me on, and that is why he is resorting to an egregious and baseless nitpick. This is the sign of a desperate man trying to scratch out any victory he can.

plays his usual debate game, cutting off the argument at the Double Asterisk Pass (see ** above), and then, after a couple of non-specific, diversionary accusations of evasion about the Land Promise debate (always good to remind your gullible readers of alleged crimes when the alleged scene of the crime is off in the distance somewhere and the trial has yet to be held, while you have been found guilty of crying wolf in every instance so far), offers another amazing Laubach error from the blowhole. Noting my quote from very early on:

To begin, the description of Abiathar as "high priest" is not titular. Neither Ahimelech nor Abiathar are ever given the title in the OT, though it is clear that Abiathar served as a leading priest (along with Zadok), and Ahimelech may have ranked highly as well.

now blathers out:

So my comments that [Holding] summarized above were directed at his attempt to make Abiathar into a "leading priest" at the time of the Nob incident.

If the Robot from Lost in Space were here, his arms would fall off from waving them around and yelling, "Danger Danger Will Robinson! Man with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder!" Excuse me -- but where in the quote just above do I say that Abiathar was a "leading priest" at the time of the Nob incident? Do you see the word "Nob" in that quote? Do you see maybe Winkin' and Blinkin'? Maybe was doing too much blinkin' and missed it? There is no mention of Nob in this quote. I say...read it slowly, : "Neither...Ahimelech...nor...Abiathar...are...ever...given...the...title...(watch carefully)...in the OT...though...it...is...clear...that...Abiathar...served...as...a...leading...priest ..(along with Zadok)..." No Nobs, no drips, one big, fat reading error. My contextual marker was the entire OT, not the Nob story alone. The argument does not depend on Abby being a leading priest at the time of the Nob incident. Remember my point, which just blows by time and again with that same oblivious (and actually sufficiently fulfilled) demand for "textual evidence": "Obviously, for Abby to be such a decent priest, he could not be born in a vacuum. He had to have been influenced by people before him..." This does not require Abby to have been "leading" at the time of Nob; it only requires that a) he at some time in his life be "leading"; b) he be alive at the time of the Nob incident. So score another zero for on the reading test, and drop his next few lines (and many arguments of his hereafter) based on this bogus reading error of his. I'm sure it takes a lot of "steady" preparation to read this well, especially after having taught English 30 years. If you were a student of Skeptic X's, and you got a bad grade, I'd turn in an appeal right now.

Now we're still not beyond the Double Asterisk Pass, but salvaging some of that wounded pride and hoping to keep the gullible distracted, Skeptic X harrumphs that he still stands by his claim "that Ahimelech at this time surely had some ranking in the priestly hierarchy at Nob, because he was the one who made the decision to let David have bread that only priests were permitted to eat." That he had some ranking is obvious. That he had high ranking is not, though he may have, and even if he did, it would make no difference to our argument. belches out a few more attempts to give Ahmy status, though, and while it does indeed make no difference to us whether Ahmy was Top Dog or Dogcatcher, we'd like to engage these reasons anyway just to let everyone see how desperate is getting these days when his eggs are being scrambled.

• "If he was not in a position of authority, why would he have made such a decision in highly superstitious times when people believed that crossing Yahweh in even trivial matters could unleash his wrath?" Oh, that's a winner of the Ironic Stupid Question Award. Now get this: One of my points has been that someone like Abby, who stayed 40 years in the one of the top two priestly positions in Israel, under the king who was considered Israel's greatest, and now we are being asked why someone not in a position of authority would have made such a decision as Ahmy did. Psst! Hey, ! "If Abiathar was not a great priest and a stickler for the law, why would David have let him continue in his job as one of the top two priests in the nation in highly superstitious times when people believed that crossing Yahweh in even trivial matters could unleash his wrath?" Pick one. (Not that it matters; this still does not address the questions we asked, which can't answer, in terms of "what sort of rank and authority structure was held by the priests of this day...how much freedom low-ranking priests were given, and in what circumstances." isn't answering the question -- because he can't -- he's pretending it isn't there!)
• "Saul had 85 priests massacred at Nob and, in typical fashion for the times, threw in all the women, children, 'sucklings,' oxen, asses, and sheep (1 Sam. 22:18-19), but Abiathar got away. Why would those in charge of this massacre have been so careless as to let the big dog get away?" Skeptic X's playing that Whoopsy debate game again, and knows darn well we answered this one further on, and he sure does have the wherewithal to bring it forward:

  Well, we said zip about what rank Abby might have had, but anyway, this assumes that Saul a) knew where Abby was at the time; b) that Abby was not smart enough to escape anyway (Saul doesn't show much in the way of a reasoned ability at times! -- this is a man in the grips of an obsession and perhaps paranoia, not exactly winner of the Clear Thinking Trophy); c) that Saul was familiar enough, or cared enough about, the Nobbie organizational chart to know who he should go after; d) that the Nobbies had such an org chart in the first place. Skeptic X has a long way to go before he makes his "hichbing" scenario anything more than fluff in a pan baked to hold up an argument.

  How does Skeptic X answer this? Wait a bit; he finally does get to all of our stuff beyond Double Asterisk Pass, just in time to fall of his horse:

  What I quoted above from sections of past exchanges that [Holding] snipped shows that he very clearly was trying to imply that Abiathar ranked higher than Ahimelech at this time, but I agree that there isn't enough information to determine the priestly hierarchy at this time.

  GAAAAGGG! Oh, it was one of those things I was trying to imply. Sort of like that place, huh, where maybe I was trying to "imply" that should pay for 90% of my website, or where I was "implying" intimate knowledge of Greek by quoting Strong's. Hot doggie. I have a suggestion for Skeptic X: He may want to see about joining the good folks over at the Roman Piso page, they're in need of someone good at ferreting out "implications," like that "he arose, took up his bed and went" (Mark 2:12) is a codephrase for sexual hanky-panky. Skeptic X would fit right in with that batch. Of course he admits, as we see, that there "isn't enough information" (which means, say goodbye to that argument which he professes still to "stand by" -- sort of like that old TV screen that told people to "please stand by" while they fixed a blown-up transmitter, but don't mention it) but covers himself with the skeppies by reminding them that there is "ample information to determine that Ahimelech and not Abiathar was the priest whom David went into at this time." Well, duh, . Did anyone here dispute that? Maybe it was another one of those mysterious "implications" someone made...Hey, : Our position does not revolve on this, or on any necessity that Abby actually be in the house when David came to call. Deal with it.

To close this section, celebrating Skeptic X's Fall at Double Asterisk Pass, we have a celebratory poem. Read it carefully:

Skeptic X came to debate,

His little *?

Now here's a fun one. Another fun one. We quoted Skeptic X, "Furthermore, when Saul heard what had happened, he called Ahimelech, not Abiathar or anyone else, before him to give an accounting of what he had done. No other priest was questioned at this time except Ahimelech." I noted in reply:

Well, yowsa! Ya don't suppose Saul asked for Ahmy becase Doeg the Edomite saw Ahmy talking to David, do ya (1 Sam.22:9)?

Skeptic X wimps out with this injection: "How many have noticed that when [Holding] has no evidence to offer in support of his position he tries to joke his way around it?" Hey, we were too busy noticing how makes himself an easy target for jokes by dodging out of major bonehead errors, by trying to bring up accusations against his opponents. The joke is on , not just about him; I suspect the poor guy is jealous of our creativity here and his own inability to come up with anything as simple as a catchy article title, leaving him with such bland titular repartee as "still Huffing and Puffing." So what for Part 3? "Even More Huffing and Puffing"? Part 4: "And Yet More Huffing and Puffing." Awesome. Don't take Skeptic X's creative writing class.

But the business matter. Note well: wanted to argue here that Saul called Ahimelech to give an accounting, and no one else, in the service of proving that Ahmy was Someone Special. I noted in reply that this was no proof at all -- however Ahmy ranked, be it high or low, the most obvious reason Saul rang his doorbell is because he was the one who Doeg saw David talking with. Now who the heck would Saul question, knowing from Doeg that Ahmy and David had been chewing the fat? Is Saul going to stop and ask the dog? The woman baking cookies? The best can do to get out of this booger error is to weakly bleat, "Certainly, Saul would have called Ahimelech onto the carpet on the grounds that Doeg the Edomite had reported that Ahimelech gave assistance to David, but if there was a top dog in the priestly hierarchy, who ranked above Ahimelech, surely Saul would have demanded an accounting from him." Pfaw. Surely my Fannie Flagg comedy tape collection. This is still a case of Skeptic X trying to hoist a sail over a sea of non-information; we still have no idea what sort of rank and authority structure was held by the priests of this day; we still do not know how much freedom low-ranking priests were given, and in what circumstances; we still do not have an Org Chart for Nob; we still don't know if Saul knew (or cared! keep in mind again Saul is an obsessed man and not exactly winner of the Clear Thinking Trophy) what the hierarchy was. Skeptic X is just trying to salvage a desperately-formulated answer out of nothing at all in the text and an assumption based on modern hierarchical notions of accountability, over and against a quite simple and clear matter of the testimony of Doeg being the pinpointer. We gigged him for missing this obvious quote from 1 Sam. 22:9 -- he who for 12 years plus has acted out knowing the Bible backwards and forwards better than any evangelical or fundamentalist or even liberal scholar -- and now has nothing left but shreds of honor to defend. Too bad Skeptic X is too full of himself to be able to admit when he missed something and bungled -- as long as thinks he can find a way out of it. (If Skeptic X wants to nitpick further, we may note that if Ahmy did have a superior, he probably was there anyway: "Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king." [22:11] And if Skeptic X really wants to fuss, what about his argument that Saul would not have let a high-ranking Abby get away? Would this same Saul take the risk that the man he knows he wants to talk to -- Ahmy, the man with all the information -- would take it on the lam, or do something drastic or stupid to get himself killed, while Saul was hashing out the matter with a superior who wasn't witness to the events, and while David was getting even more time to get farther away?!? , look in the dictionary under "consistency".)

Let's stress it again, since Skeptic X has a problem reading: We don't know where Ahmy ranked in the hierarchy; therefore, to base any argument -- as Skeptic X has -- on his rank is to base an argument on nothing. There is no "predicament" here for us -- Skeptic X has placed his own self in the quicksand hole trying to build something on Nothing, and trying to spin the matter back on us is in fact HIS evasion of his own methodological error.

After wasting more space and time on technical issues of debate in the Land Promise context, denying his EVERYTHING stricture was ever made AGAIN, bleating yet AGAIN for passages showing Abby's renown (been there, done that, deal with it, -- the answer to your question has already been given, so deal with it rather than dodging and re-asking the question over and over again to fill space and fool your readers into thinking it hasn't been answered), and offering a few personal comments and bland denials in advance about "how it could have beening" (we say more of this slightly later in the article and will see how Skeptic X reacts to it, in turn), and again misreading our comments as though implying Abby had rank at the time of the Nob incident (as opposed to, overall in the OT and the history of Israel -- read carefully, again: nowhere do we say Abby "ranked" at the time of the Nob incident), and again again again repeating pre-emptively (before our answer below) the question about Saul letting Abby escape (it has been answered, ; just hit your Page Down key -- you didn't eat it, did you? -- and see), we actually DO get to where I answered that matter, where I said:

...but anyway, this assumes that Saul a) knew where Abby was at the time; b) that Abby was not smart enough to escape anyway (Saul doesn't show much in the way of a reasoned ability at times! -- this is a man in the grips of an obsession and perhaps paranoia, not exactly winner of the Clear Thinking Trophy); c) that Saul was familiar enough, or cared enough about, the Nobbie organizational chart to know who he should go after; d) that the Nobbies had such an org chart in the first place. Skeptic X has a long way to go before he makes his "hichbing" scenario anything more than fluff in a pan baked to hold up an argument.

Expect an answer? Not yet. First Skeptic X plays that old game of Shift the Arguments Around; i.e.:

• Opponent argues step A in his argument.
• Interrupt, as often as possible, to point out that this does not answer for problems posed to some or all of steps B, C, D, E, and F, and strongly emphasize that these problems haven't been solved yet. Also throw in any side comments you can on different topics.
• Throw up brief answer to what opponent says on step A.
• Opponent argues step B in his argument.(etc)

barks back, "Hmm, [Holding] seems to be arguing from implication here, doesn't he? So argument by implication seems to be a valid way of arguing when it suits his needs, but when it doesn't, it becomes a no-no." Argument by implication is valid if and when the implications are supported by evidence, and there are degrees of evidential value. I made a point of this later, but since is playing the Shifting Game, we'll bring it back up here, and see if he can figure out how to do it with our arguments as well as his:

Let's make a broader point of this where Skeptic X's overall methodology is concerned. Skeptic X will moan to the max as he often does about "how it could have been" scenarios (as he talks from the other side of his mouth using them freely!). As we noted in another context, what Skeptic X calls "hichbing" and "speculation" is really nothing but historical detective work. A classic example of this, in a non-Christian context, is David Ulansey's work on the origins of Mithraism, in the observation of the procession of the equinoxes. Ulansey has no Mithraic document saying, "We started this because of the procession." He pieces together evidence that converges in time and space and reaches a conclusion. This is just normal historical detective work.

Obviously some "hichbes" are not as valid as others. As we suggested, we can posit many reasons why the woman at the well in John 4 was there at noon:

• She was a social outcast who could not come at the ordinary time for getting water.
• She spilled her water supply that morning and was thirsty.
• She didn't want to miss The Bold and the Beautiful at 1:00.

Every one of these is a "hichb" scenario, because none of them are specifically stated. So how do we decide? We draw on converging lines of evidence. #3 is obviously out, because The Bold and the Beautiful came on at 2:00 in Palestine. Skeptic X, if he had some reason to argue and our case was supported by #1, would probably choose #2 and fume onward and upward about how we are "reading minds" or "speculating" to arrive at #1. Of course #2 isn't something that is impossible by any means. But #1 is supported by the social data offered in John 4, namely, the woman's many relationships with men that would cause her to suffer social ostracism from the other women of the community. Skeptic X may then spit more stuff about "reading minds" and "you're only assuming that happened," blase squase, etc etc. Well, at that point, he's already roadkill. When the resort is to endless and pointless questions, that's where the terminus is and Skeptic X is running his gator in a darkened room where the party ended 6 hours ago. It's rather like this:

Skeptic X: I went to the dentist today and had a tooth pulled.

MCKINSEY: I don't believe it. I think you had that tooth knocked out in a fight.

T: WHAT! Where do you get off with that?

M: I think you're just covering up something and don't want to admit you got bested in a fight.

T: Baloney! Do you see any other bruises on me? How could I have been in a fight?

M: You probably lost after one punch, ya wimp!

T: OH YEAH! Well, here's a card from my dentist showing I had an appointment today, plus the lollipop he gave me for being good. So what do you say to that?

M: Big deal. You can get a lolly from any candy store and say it came from a dentist. And you could swipe a card from his desk and write your own appointment in it.

T: Well, this is his handwriting! I can prove it! Here's a letter from him with the same handwriting.

M: You probably paid him off to make that stuff, to get out of the embarrassment of being bested in a fight. Or maybe you're a good forger. Or you hired one. Heck, you probably even paid your dentist to say you were there today. You'll do anything to get out of jams like this, just like you did with Ezion-geber.

T: &%$#*#!

The bottom line: arguing by implication is valid, but the implications need to draw first from direct evidence and knowledge of the context. Skeptic X does neither of these things; he merely makes up arguments as he goes along, as we have shown, and when called on it turns to scrambling. We'll see later he doesn't admit to the validity of the paradigm but tries to avoid its implications. Let's see how he scrambles with our response offered thus:

Showing further how uni-dimensional he is, Skeptic X burps, "...but Abiathar 'escaped and fled to David' (v:20). It wouldn't have been very likely that Saul, who was bent on killing every priest at Nob, would have allowed the 'ranking' priest to escape." Well, we said zip about what rank Abby might have had, but anyway, this assumes that Saul a) knew where Abby was at the time; b) that Abby was not smart enough to escape anyway (Saul doesn't show much in the way of a reasoned ability at times! -- this is a man in the grips of an obsession and perhaps paranoia, not exactly winner of the Clear Thinking Trophy); c) that Saul was familiar enough, or cared enough about, the Nobbie organizational chart to know who he should go after; d) that the Nobbies had such an org chart in the first place.

To A), "knew where Abby was at the time," Skeptic X responds:

Well, the biblical text (which is inerrant, of course) says that "the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests who were in Nob" (1 Sam. 22:11). I assume that [Holding] understands that "sent to call" means that Saul didn't go himself but sent men to bring Ahimelech and the other priests to appear before him. If Abiathar at this time was a "renowned priest," then surely the men whom Saul sent to bring the priests to him would not have overlooked one of the big dogs. That's what you call implication.

We have no issue with this meaning Saul sent men out to collect the boys, but sorry, this still doesn't cut the mustard, because A1) it assumes that we have argued that Abby was a "renowned priest" at the time of the Nob incident, which is nothing but Skeptic X's reading error yet again; A2) it still assumes that Saul knows where Abby is, somewhere particularly in Nob; A3) it would also assume that Saul would take the time to count noses and make sure everyone was present; which in turn assumes A4) that he was informed enough of the details of the lives of the priests in Nob to know every member of the group was there. The "implication" isn't even off the runway here and Skeptic X just ends up causing more problems for himself.

To B), "that Abby was not smart enough to escape anyway (Saul doesn't show much in the way of a reasoned ability at times! -- this is a man in the grips of an obsession and perhaps paranoia, not exactly winner of the Clear Thinking Trophy)", Skeptic X blatters back:

[Holding] will have to explain how he arrived at this conclusion about what I was assuming. As this story was told, which I don't necessarily assume was historically accurate, Abiathar was obviously smart enough to escape, because somehow he did escape (if the incident is actually historical). I would think, however, that his escape would indicate that he was not considered one of the big potatoes, or else Saul's men would have done a better job of watching him. We notice, for example, that Ahimelech didn't escape, and it is reasonable to assume that he couldn't have escape because he was known to be the one that Saul wanted to see.

Well, duh ha, . This is what you HAVE to be assuming in order to work on the premise that Saul would have been after Abby's hide. No matter how determined Saul may have personally been not to let any one priest escape, it wouldn't matter diddly-do how determined he was if Abby was smart enough (or maybe lucky enough) to outsmart Saul and his military grunts. Beyond that Skeptic X's comments are based on the (again) false reading of our argument to say that Abby was a "big potatoe" (with sour cream and Dan Quayle on the side) at the time of the Nob incident. We'll be seeing Skeptic X haul up this reading error of his time and time and time again, and as with all his arguments they do not get better with age. No doubt next round he'll put on the swami hat with Johnny Carson and claim I was "implying" such a thing somewhere along the line.

To C), "that Saul was familiar enough, or cared enough about, the Nobbie organizational chart to know who he should go after," Skeptic X barks back with 22:11 again, which does not address the issue of whether Saul know the org chart or cared about it enough to know everyone; it merely shifts the matter to whether Saul's grunts were familiar enough, or cared enough about, the org chart to know who they should be collecting. Try again, .

To D), "that the Nobbies had such an org chart in the first place," Skeptic X burps that "I never made any such assumption," but sorry, such an assumption is necessary if you are going to argue that there were "top dogs" to go after in the first place. There can't be "top dogs" unless there is rank; without rank every dog is the same. Since Skeptic X and I agree that Not All Priests Were Created Equal in this context, he assumes an org chart to some degree whether he admits it or not, and he can't hide it by repeating his arguments over and over and claiming I use "levity" as a diversion. No, I use it so the reader won't get bored to tears reading Skeptic X's repetitive bombast, and to show as well how seriously I take Skeptic X as an opponent -- and by the latest misreading, I may have to add even more levity next round.

We get now to where I noted Skeptic X "whinnying a bit for the gullible skeptical readers about my reference to the 'high priest' as it stands in Greek (and saying nothing in the process that answers my point)..." And he didn't. Skeptic X thinks that it is "something" to snidely remark about how "impressed" we should be by a reference to Greek and asking what we have proven. There was a point made, and missed it. The "arch-" part of "archierus" doesn't just refer to a titular rank. It means high in rank and order. But what rank and order? Not the political order at Nob -- Skeptic X still thinks we are arguing this, and wastes a great deal of verbiage because he thinks so -- but the rank and order of priests in Israel's history from the perspective of Jesus' contemporaries in the NT, and (let's make sure gets this point!) someone who was not merely "great" in a vacuum. So now for some more of 's Stupid Skeptic Questions. There are four, but three are based on 's bad reading of our argument, so we only answer #1:

1. Please tell us what point there was in your statement about the Greek word for "high priest" that needed a response.

Look carefully: You needed to explain why arche- here could only have a titular meaning, which is essential to your argument, but which the linguistic evidence does not support -- even by your own unwitting admissions below. Otherwise Skeptic X's not addressing anything here.

Now a brief note where I gigged for trying to blame Casey for merely "assuming" that the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees actually happened. Once again heads off on his horse to Double Asterisk Pass:

Oh he does, does he!** And there's something wrong with that? Well, when Skeptic X proves that other private conversations recorded in works like that of Tacitus or Josephus even happened, then maybe we'll entertain his little historiographical fantasy that this is a worthwhile argument and not just a diversion.

No surprise here. Skeptic X is cornered behind an eight-ball of trying to make it out that he has any reason to doubt this conversation happened as recorded, so he pulls out the skeptical cue stick of, "Hey, this is in a text that reports miracles, so it obviously can't be trusted!" That's sure to jerk tears from skeptical eyes, but it doesn't work in this beanfield, where we recognize it for what it is, a begged question and a vaguely generalized diversion. Skeptic X demands "some kind of reliable evidence that would corroborate Mark's claim that this incident actually happened." Fine -- once Skeptic X gets out of that snowstorm in Double Asterisk Pass and tells us how to get "some kind of reliable evidence that would corroborate Josephus' or Tacitus' claim that some private event they record actually happened." No fudging here, because both Tacitus and Josephus report miracles of their own. Let's see if Skeptic X can be consistent, or if he's just blowing smoke to fool the skeptical masses who already think he's High Falutin' Dog.

On the side, Skeptic X wants to start a fit over the Marcan priority hypothesis and why Matt and Luke do not report the Abiathar reference. Does Skeptic X want to keep playing that diversion game? Fine. He can go here and refute all of our material on that hypothesis, which is looking less happy by the moment as Biblical and secular scholars alike get a grip on it being a bunch of presumptive malarkey. The omission of the Abby reference is no more or less than we would expect in the process of oral or textual transmission. Now that ought to get Skeptic X interested.

Just to cover himself, Skeptic X adds, "If [Holding] will promise me that he will reply to them, I will gladly quote several statements in the writings of Tacitus, Josephus, Suetonius, and other ancient writers and give my reasons for rejecting their historical accuracy." Make sure you read it clearly, : I don't want just ANY statement; I want something parallel to a private talk like Jesus had with the Pharisees. Make sure you also tell us how we could find "reliable evidence" for such private conversations. You'll get points for consistency if you say that these guys report miracles in their texts, but no points for thinking - does a report of a miracle destroy all of a writer's credibility? If not, how much of it, and why, and how to we determine that as it applies to the text and the different accounts contained therein? -- and if that is the tack you take, be ready to be overwhelmed with material we'll provide on that subject from a variety of sources. You'll need to deal with the "existence of God" question, for once God is in the picture, miracles become de facto non-impossible. You'll need to explain how the miracles stories of Jesus came about, and be ready because Glenn Miller's ThinkTank has a 12-part series of at least 3 megs you'll have to deal with. Or, you can just stop playing these cheap diversionary games and stick to the subject at hand.

closes by asking, "Do you believe that every statement in King Mesha's inscription on the Moabite Stone is historically accurate?" He'll find the answer to the implied question here where we replied to the same diversionary goof-off on the Land Promise issue.

One more bark here, which Skeptic X is not very specific on. He says, "Since there is no way at all to establish that Jesus ever made the statement above in Aramaic, the only relevant matter in this debate is whether the incident as recorded in Greek is consistent with what is said elsewhere in the Bible about David's encounter with Ahimelech." I do hope here that Skeptic X is trying to imply (I won't assume it, that's what gets people in trouble, as "You Want Me to Pay for 90% of Your Website" Skeptic X should know) that Jesus spoke Greek. Aramaic was overwhelmingly the language of the Jews of this era; Greek was limited to encounters with those who spoke Greek as their native tongue (NOT the Pharisees, obviously). I do hope that Skeptic X will argue this, though, because I have plenty of material available to lower the boom on him if he wants to argue that there was any chance that Jesus was speaking Greek here. If he does want to argue this, we'll have some nice material set up on the language spoken in Palestine by Jews by the time he gets back around to this issue in the next several months. It's a good project anyway for when other unlearned skeptics try this one. I'd also like to see Skeptic X, who admits he doesn't know Aramaic, to counter the translation of Casey, who is one of the leading specialists in Biblical Aramaic in the world. It would be just like the arrogant freethinker in Skeptic X to pompously stride up to an expert like Casey and think that barking, "Yeah, how do YOU know?" is an adequate answer. It may be for arrogant freethinkers, but for real thinkers, it isn't.

Some more interesting work. We're going to ignore Skeptic X's comments where we said Mark 2:26 was "a case of an overliteral translation by Mark as a bilingual (a much simpler 'mistake,' as Casey does call it and which we have no problem calling it, than supposing that Mark was too dumb to not see that the title was never used in the OT!)..." Let Skeptic X grope with the mystery of that, since he thinks he knows it all about inerrancy. He also takes time to note a place where I didn't repeat one of his arguments, that the word in 2:26 is always used elsewhere to refer to the high priest as an office. Well, sorry, no one argued otherwise. needs to get a grip on his ego. But that will be like catching greased pigs from the looks of it. Our mock dialogue with a McKinsey fanatic apparently touched a few raw nerves, because takes some time to justify himself as a defender against "extremist" skeptics like McKinsey. Too bad misses the point -- and that is, that he's no less an extremist than McKinsey, using exactly the same tactics and exegetical assumptions, offering up the same sort of anachronisms, only differing in that he has the sense to avoid the most blatant and obvious sort of bungles that McKinsey does not have the sense to avoid. And to top it all off, Skeptic X ironically shoots himself in the neck responding to something "Hyper" offers: He notes that "Hyper" made an error because the plural form of the word for "priest" was used to "denote members of the Sanhedrin and other prominent priests." Now if that's true, how would one refer to a merely "prominent priest" who was not the titular "high priest" -- just one of them? Why would not the singular form of archiereus be used to refer to just one of these non-office holding priests? If this is so, then it just begs the question to say that the singular form "always" referred to the office of the high priest and that that means it can't refer to anything else. What magic does the plural form give it that enables us to remove any sense of the titular? Hey, if this is what Skeptic X wants to argue, this is fine -- Skeptic X can just keep giving us more ammo to shoot him with, we don't object.

He can see our comments on his reply to the "Chicken Challenge" here.

Another word on "Hyper." Skeptic X has no sense of humour to speak of -- we imagine that picture of him smiling had to be done with a prosthetic device and outrageous bribes, or perhaps they caught him after news that Jim Bakker had been sent to prison -- so he missed that of course, Hyper represented the opinion of a McKinseyite who WOULD (in line with McKinsey's ultra-paranoia) claim that Skeptic X collapsed under pressure. We have no idea what actually happened behind the scenes and don't care. We do expect that McKinsey would say that in his opinion, Skeptic X "suffered a resounding defeat and severe damage to his reputation." Our opinion, though, is actually in the middle. We suspect that Skeptic X waved off McKinsey for the same sort of reason Robert Price dissed Acharya S: Because she was making him look bad as a Christ-myther.

As noted above, Skeptic X seems to think that the singular use of archiereus elsewhere in the NT to refer to the "official" high priest somehow proves that Mark 2:26 MUST mean the same exact thing. He shot himself in the foot with no help from us, now, by saying that the plural was used to mean people other than high-office-holders. Well, again, if that's true, what about someone referring to one priest out of a group of these non-office-holding priests? If there were ten of these guys, they could be described as "priests" (plural), so logically, if nine of them leave, what is the guy left behind called? I'll take that as another "oops" by Skeptic X in our service. In the meantime, I point out that another reason to think Mark did not have "title" in mind is that there "were no titular high priests at the time of Abiathar or Ahimelech, and positing rampant stupidity by Mark isn't an answer." Skeptic X dodges this one like a bullet with strings attached, barking back that, "Being ill informed on some matters doesn't make one rampantly stupid, but there are examples that indicate that the writer of Mark wasn't exactly an authority in Jewish matters." Actually this would make Mark rampantly stupid in the context of OT knowledge, and ironically, Skeptic X tries to have his cake and eat it too here by bringing up this old saw:

When Mark, for example, attributed to Isaiah a statement that Malachi had actually said, was this not an indication that Mark's knowledge of the Old Testament wasn't exactly perfect?

Heck no, it's an indication that Skeptic X's knowledge of Jewish exegetical and citation practices is dubious and pathetic. Skeptic X cites this as one of three errors he thinks Mark makes and asks if we want to talk about Mark's record as a whole. That's a typical Skeptic X-diversion -- but if he wants to play that game, fine -- and why not take the whole sandwich rather than just a few bites? Want to play, ? Go ahead -- you can find answers to every alleged error against Mark we have found, right here. You may not agree that they are all problems, but if you want to play the general game of "was Mark reliable" then we insist on the whole shebang being brought to court. It'll keep you out of trouble and looking over your shoulder, that's for sure.

In the next section we did a little broad methodological criticism of Skeptic X's way of "hichbing" at his leisure as he deigns to criticize others blindly for doing the same. Our point of course is that 1) "hichbing" is part of a normal process of historical detective work; 2) there are levels of plausibility to any "hichb". Skeptic X clearly doesn't want to engage such direct criticism of his methodology, or else is too out of touch with reality to see the point. I vote for the latter. In response to the comparison of Ulansey's detective work in spite of not having direct "textual evidence" that the procession of the equinoxes was what founded Roman Mithraism, Skeptic X bleats back, "What does this have to do with the issue we are debating?" This, Simple Simon: It's an example of how "textual evidence" is not the be all and end all for reaching a conclusion, contrary to the bleating, repetitive demand for such that Skeptic X finds so impressive. Beyond that, these basic principles have Skeptic X so confused and disoriented that he thinks it has some effect to mirror back my own John 4 scenario in terms of Mark 2:26. He offers up these three:

1. Mark was unfamiliar with the details of the story in 1 Samuel 21 and made an honest mistake.
2. Mark was actually an enemy of Christianity, and so he purposefully tried to discredit it by putting recognizable errors like this into his book.
3. Jesus intentionally referred to Abiathar instead of Ahimelech, because he knew that Abiathar was a "stickler for the law" and that his name would "invoke honoring the law."

Of course Skeptic X put 2 in for laughs, and thinks 3 is "soundly refuted," which is nothing more than his personal fantasy in the service of trying to keep 1 alive, which sounds like the best option only to the extremely lazy and arrogant. On the basis of his literacy and bilingualism, Mark was already in the top 5 to 10 percent of educated people in the ancient world; he shows signs of having a rhetorical education, which puts him even higher. Skeptic X had better be sure he has solid proof that Mark overall was a dumbbell on the OT before he goes running his gator any further. We're still waiting for him to get to the meat of our response; from what he has so far -- the "singular/plural" game with the word "priest" -- he's so far doing more to promote 3 than he is 1.

We noted:

To begin, Skeptic X misses our comment, "That much is obviously true," and takes it as a reference to "that the word archiereus was used in reference to Abiathar" --

Skeptic X bargles back that he did not "misrepresent" our words. We didn't say bleck about "misrepresenting" -- we said Skeptic X "missed" our comment, which was the answer to his question, "Why is it 'obviously true' that the word archiereus was used in reference to Abiathar only to indicate that he was a 'great priest or a renowed priest'?" It is because, as we stated, Abby was indeed, by his record, a renowned priest. A little later Skeptic X says he will "grant" that this is what we indeed meant. Awful nice of the old boy to be kind to us over his own poor reading ability of our words. Maybe eventually he will "grant" that we didn't actually want him to pay for 90% of this website.

My evidence for Abby as a renowned priest who honored the law is summed up as follows: "Abiathar served David for the entirety of his reign of 40 years and had the privilege, along with Zadok, of carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred Jewish religious object." Skeptic X barbles back at this point, "I shot this 'carrying the ark' as a sign of renown full of holes, as I will be showing again later on." He shot, but he had the rifle pointing the wrong way when he pulled the trigger. It's that old game again, folks:

• Opponent argues step A in his argument.
• Interrupt, as often as possible, to point out that this does not answer for problems posed to some or all of steps B, C, D, E, and F, and strongly emphasize that these problems haven't been solved yet. Also throw in any side comments you can on different topics.
• Throw up brief answer to what opponent says on step A.
• Opponent argues step B in his argument.
• Interrupt, as often as possible, to point out that this does not answer for problems posed to some or all of steps A, C, D, E, and F, and strongly emphasize that these problems haven't been solved yet. Also throw in any side comments you can on different topics.
• Throw up brief answer for what opponent says on step B.
• Repeat for steps C through F.

Fair enough. We shot Skeptic X's "carrying the ark" response full of enough holes to use as a Swiss cheese template. See how easy it is to play this game Skeptic X plays?

To close section 1, our phrase is noted, "...and it is his 'renown-ness' that we say is obviously true." Skeptic X ends this section with a funny: "[Incidentally, renown is a noun, so the suffix '-ness' is just another sign of linguistic ignorance on the part of the would-be apologist who knows all about Hebrew, Greek, and now Aramaic, but doesn't do too well with his own native language.]" Aside from that straw man of expertise which Skeptic X still can't find on this site except via obscure "implications" only he and his rascals manage to see (see here), the real funny is that Skeptic X closes with a note that his web designers who "htmlize" his work told him to keep his stuff to a certain number of words. Hey, man: "html" isn't a verb, , it's an acronym. So this new word is a sign of linguistic ignorance by a would-be errantist who taught English for 30 years, right? Ha ha! Hey, , I KNOW "renown" is a noun and the suffix does not go with it. That's why I put the word in quotes, dog. Figure it out.

Now we get to where I gigged Skeptic X for a social bonehead error, in which he guessed that David had "feelings of guilt," and showed from expert testimony by scholars studied in ancient Mediterranean social anthropology that no such "feelings of guilt" would have existed. Skeptic X first tries to weasel out of his explanation by saying he "obviously used the expressions 'feeling of guilt' and 'feeling of responsibility' interchangeably." It's about as obvious as the Invisible Man, actually, and doesn't matter; it runs down to that "feelings" of guilt OR responsibility didn't exist at this time. Guilt and responsibility were apprehended intellectually, not emotionally or psychologically, and if Skeptic X is guilty of this sort of outrageous anachronism, it tells us enough (by his own "guilt by association" method of doing things) how much he can be trusted to know what he is doing as a whole. Yes, , it is "flagrant quibbling" -- exactly as you do it. We're giving the pusher a taste of his own drug, and it's clear he doesn't like it very much.

It's also clear he doesn't know what to do about it. We all know how Skeptic X plays the game when he is confronted by material from authority. Let's remind the reader about this:

First of all, we've noted that like to fume when we quote scholars, and the gas really got lit when he lost 500 subscribers to TSR after Everette Hatcher laid down the law with scholarship out the kazoo. That of course does not stop from quoting scholars when he likes it, and when he agrees with them, but he always feels the needs to bark out something to the effect of, "Holding would be lost without the crutches of references to quote. As we go through this 'argument,' I hope readers will ask themselves where Holding would be if he could not say, 'DeMar put it like this,' or, 'Wright thinks thus and so....'", or, "We're just supposed to take DeMar's word for this?", just to be sure the gullible skeppies think he has a handle on things. Skeptic X never goes as far as accusing us clearly of "argument by authority" -- he knows better, since that would make it all too obvious to prevent him from using authorities when it suits his purposes -- but that is the essence of his "crutch" comments, to gain the polemical advantage of yelling "Argument by authority!" while still using authorities whenever he wants to.

But what of quoting scholars being a "crutch"? The site we reference has this to say:

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 quoting of Biblical scholars like Demar and McComiskey, and where Skeptic X does use scholars like Cross, is no "crutch" but a perfectly acceptable methodology. On the other hand, when Skeptic X goes quoting non-experts like Dornbusch, that's a case of him double-parking. 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.

Skeptic X 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 Skeptic X's little "boo game" about quoting scholars as a "crutch" is nothing but hypocritical mulluguthering -- if he can't handle the conclusions of scholars who know their stuff, either with his own knowledge or by finding contrary scholarship (like he did try, with help from Monson, with Cross) that directly answers our points, he's just playing games and avoiding the issues when he goes on about things like where the books were published that have nothing to do with the validity of their content...

Skeptic X of course knows as much about ancient Mediterranean social psychology and anthropology as he does about quark physics, so naturally when confronted with Malina and Rohrbaugh -- both respected authors who have written multiple volumes and great numbers of articles on this subject, and are members of what is called the Context Group, a collection of scholars specializing in this narrow field of interest -- he is reduced to barking like a chihuahua: "Oh, my G__, did Malina and Rohrbaugh say this? Then it must be right." Darned straight it is, and Skeptic X hasn't got the wherewithal to say anything in opposition, which is why all he can do is belch from his easy chair as he spills his Pringles all over his undershirt. "Did anyone else besides me notice that Malina and Rohrbaugh offered no kind of argumentation at all to support their claim--at least not in the part [Holding] quoted--so it is nothing but a bald assertion." You want support? Malina and Rohrbaugh, and their fellow members of the Context Group, have reams of study behind their assertions, tons of documentation in their works, and years of know-how they collected while Skeptic X was eking it out at a community college teaching English and trying to decide whether he would conjugate verbs or diagram sentences. If it's so bald an assertion, why doesn't Skeptic X get his rear end out and find some contrary data rather than posturing in ignorance? Why? Because he hasn't got the ability is why. Skeptic X is an English expert; if there was a question about grammar, and he answered it based on his internal knowledge and experience, how impressed should he be by some nimnul who replies that he "offered no kind of argumentation at all" to support his claim? He burps again, "I can't imagine that [Holding] would be dumb enough to argue that human nature in biblical times was so radically different from ours that people didn't experience feelings of guilt, remorse, sorrow, etc. for their actions..." Yes, , human nature, as in, the way it was expressed, in Biblical times WAS radically different from ours in many ways, such as that it was a collectivist rather than an individualist society; and yes, people did NOT experience feelings of guilt or remorse. Beyond that Skeptic X is mixing things up: No one said drip about sorrow here, which is not the same as guilt; it is a broader term. "Remorse" is closer, and perhaps as some use it synonymously with "guilt", but no dice still, the modern, introspective concept of "feeling" such things simply didn't exist. That's Skeptic X erecting one of his usual strawmen, and then having the nerve to ask why we don't "check claims" like these against texts. It's even more nerve when Skeptic X can't even get straight what is being said. Let's see how the chihuahua takes on the Great Danes. "I'll first take Malina's and Rohrbaugh's claim that forgiveness in biblical times didn't mean 'psychological healing," he wiffles. "Maybe they will want to argue with the prophet Isaiah." And the quote:

Isaiah 6:9-10 And he said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.' Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed."

Gosh, excuse me, Mr. Skeptic X, but where in blazes do we see Isaiah mentioning "feelings of guilt" or "psychological healing" in this one? Neither makes so much as a curtain call. Skeptic X apparently thinks if he finds the word "healing" or some variation that he's done the job. Sorry, but Isaiah isn't talking about "feelings" here, much less feelings of guilt specifically. Skeptic X notes the use of this quote in the NT, then tries to pull in Ps. 95:7//Heb. 3:7-11:

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.' As in my anger I swore, 'They will not enter my rest.'"

There's still not any mention of "feelings of guilt" or "psychological healing" of such feelings in sight. Maybe Skeptic X thinks if he throws up enough smoke, no one will notice he can't answer the question and that he has no recourse to answer actual experts in the field. Not that it has ever bothered him in the first place to tell scholars, even liberal ones like Speiser and Casey, that they must have been stupid enough to not read the text as well as he has, in English, in this culture. Look at how Skeptic X fuddles the actual issue as he progresses: "Now let's return to the claim that 'psychological healing' was unknown in biblical times." Say again? No: "Since the introspective, guilt-oriented outlook of industrialized societies did not exist [in NT times], it is unlikely that forgiveness meant psychological healing. Instead, forgiveness by God meant being divinely restored to one's position and therefore freed from fear of loss at the hands of God." It is NOT "psychological healing" that is said not to exist; it is the introspective, guilt-oriented outlook that was unknown. Skeptic X proceeds to throw out Biblical examples of what he thinks relate "psychological healing" but he's throwing darts at his own behind for the first two examples. Only in the last example does he bring out something that he thinks shows that people of that time experienced feelings of guilt:

Psalm 51:1-5 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

Nice try, , but nowhere here does it say that David FELT guilty. He KNEW he was guilty. Period. No feelings. No modern introspection. He knew he done wrong and said so. Expressing guilt, , is not the same as feeling guilt. I have met prison inmates who willingly expressed their guilt for horrendous crimes but clearly FELT neither guilt nor remorse. The two are not joined at the hip. And sorry, Acts 2:37 doesn't say diddly about "guilt" being what was felt, nor does Acts 3:18-20. tries to punt out of this embarrassing error of his by saying it is "irrelevant" to the Abiathar issue, but has never shown any inclination to stop harping on irrelevancies himself when it suits his purposes, so we're going to keep pounding it home for the duration. Bottom line: his claim that David was "feeling" or "felt" guilty is an anachronistic blunder that shows just how appallingly ignorant Skeptic X is of Biblical cultural backgrounds, and his barking at Malina and Rohrbaugh and sampling of the text wearing his own lenses is nothing but a smoke screen to cover his incompetence.

Given his propensity to tell experts they have no idea what they are talking about, I think we need to start referring to Skeptic X another way. In this respect he mirrors C. Dennis McKinsey's blight of alleging that, for example, scholars of Latin are too stupid to see that the reference by Tacitus to Jesus is a clever forgery, and he and Remsburg have the goods on the subject the scholars don't.

Hereafter, Skeptic X will regularly be known on this site as "Skeptic X."

For more on this, see here.

In a brief interlude Skeptic X plays another song based on his poor reading that our argument was, and required, that Abby be famous and renowned at the time of the Nob incident. He even quotes our main argument, which doesn't even say this, and doesn't even notice the difference. We do finally get to another of the textual evidences offered, where we said, "any man who held a job 40 years today would 99% of the time be regarded as someone who did a danged good job," and noted Skeptic X working for 30 years would presumably serve as an example unless Skeptic X wants to profess otherwise and say he was actually an absconder who played video games and bribed the administration. In response Skeptic X barks back:

Surely [Holding] isn't going to argue that length of service on a job is a guarantee of outstanding performance. Length of service can often result in long-timers resting on their laurels, and I can personally think of such examples where I worked.

That's very nice, of course, but since Skeptic X offers no relative percentages showing how many stayed in long service due to outstanding performance versus how many stayed due to administrative indifference, and show that the latter are in any sense a notable force, this is just a barrel of hot air. Of course, if Skeptic X wants to calculate percentages from his former employ, he needs to keep in mind some vital differences between now and then: 1) our modern litigious society versus a day with no lawyers to defend any claim of unlawful termination -- a factor he unwittingly admits later; 2) was the administration at his place of work as dedicated to their principles of quality as David was to the principles of Yahweh?; 3) and of course, he admits (does he really want to?) that this was a "highly superstitious times when people believed that crossing Yahweh in even trivial matters could unleash his wrath." I don't think his old bosses were too worried about that or anything that serious. What it boils back down to is that Skeptic X still cannot change the fact that a person with extended tenure on a job is by far assumed to have accomplished that tenure through hard work, endurance, and outstanding performance. It takes evidence to prove otherwise, because the natural implication of a long service is that someone did a good job, unless their boss also happened to be a jerk and was also fuddling. Moreover, Skeptic X still can't seem to stop shooting himself for our sake. Even someone "resting on laurels" only gets that rest after he has managed to collect enough laurel leaves to make a nest out of them, and so Skeptic X still has a situation where the person was, for the greater part of their tenure, one who rated outstanding to well in their performance. So if Skeptic X wants to play the anecdote game, he's out of luck. He needs to show a consistent pattern of persons who maintained their positions over long periods without outstanding performance ratings, and then show that these were a significant minority or a majority. Then he needs to parallel the situation to Abby's in terms of who was in charge and the spirit and context of the age. Quibbling? That's what Skeptic X calls a sound argument when he can't answer it, and what he calls it when his steadily and patiently composed "hack and cough work" suppositions are run through the X-Ray machine.

Then we get again to where we spoke of Abby being one who carried the Ark of the Covenant -- Judaism's most sacred religious object. As one of two leading priestly authorities, Abby was for 40 years either directly responsible for carrying the Ark when needed, or else had the discretion to choose the persons who would carry the Ark. Bear in mind that Skeptic X has already, playing the usual role of the temporal provincialist, said (and by now wishes he hadn't) that these were "highly superstitious times when people believed that crossing Yahweh in even trivial matters could unleash his wrath." Even if Abby never carried the Ark, and the language of the OT is that of representation (see below), picking someone to carry the Ark was not the same as Skeptic X walking down to Wal-Mart and picking out a pair of boxers.

thinks we snipped 2 Samuel 15:24-5 because we "obviously didn't want readers to be reminded" of what it said. That's Skeptic X the psychoanalyst up to his usual games, and assuming you are dumb and gullible enough, as he is, to be led on by the trick as well. One would like to know how long Skeptic X will be insulting reader intelligence this way. We referred to 15:29, which spoke of Abby and Zadok carrying the Ark, and probably only Skeptic X and a few of his disciples are insensate and conspiracy-minded enough not to get the drift that (d'oh) 15:24-5, in light of our next comment ("Maybe it means he was supervisor over people who carried it!") was not itself a reference to others carrying the Ark under their command. Must be one of those "implied" things that people only get when they suffer from paranoia and an inferiority complex. Now how's that for psychoanalysis? At any rate, while we would of course have no beef with even 15:29 being a "representation" verse, it remains that even to pick who would carry the Ark was a huge and serious responsibility, so Skeptic X still doesn't get out of that one without damage. Nor for that matter does this help:

1 Kings 6:2 The temple that King Solomon built for Yahweh was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.

"I guess [Holding] thinks that Solomon laid every stone that went into building the temple," Skeptic X snorts. Sorry, no comparison. It is obvious that one man cannot build a Temple (or in the case of Moses, a tent the size of the Tabernacle one) himself. On the other hand, it is obvious that two men can be involved in carrying the Ark. Solomon and Moses were not, as far as we know, construction specialists; but carrying an object requires no special skills or unusual effort, and the special skills required, or the unusual effort needed, are contextual markers that require us to read such passages as representational. Not so with 1 Samuel 15:29, since Ark-carrying required no special skills; it is plausibly read either way.

So then, if Skeptic X admits, as he does, that there "is no doubt that the Old Testament teaches that care of the ark was entrusted to Abiathar," it doesn't mean diddly if he carried it himself or not, though we would argue that he probably did at appropriate times. That still means Abby had a heavy responsibility to take seriously, and when he had to choose between Priest Steady Freddie and Priest Clumsy Carl to carry the Ark, you don't suppose he gave it a second and third and fourth thought before deciding? So the best can do here is yodel back to his old horn about Hophi and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, which he tells the gullible skeppies I "skipped". OK, let's see if I did a baaaad ting here. Here is what sed:

As noted previously, on the occasion that [Holding] is referring to, the ark was actually carried by Levites who accompanied Abiathar and Zadok (2 Sam. 15:24). Let's suppose, however, that Abiathar had actually carried the ark. How would that prove that he was renowned as a priest whose name invoked honoring the law? Eli's sons, Hopni and Phinehas, were presented in 1 Samuel 2:12-17 as corrupt priests who used the priesthood for their personal gain, yet when the ark of the covenant was taken into battle against the Philistines, "Hopni and Phinehas were there with the ark of God" (1 Sam. 4:4), so the fact that priests may have accompanied the ark of the covenant did not say anything at all about the personal character of the priests.

So even though they were priests, Hopni and Phinehas corrupted the sacrifices at the altar and committed adultery with women who worked in the tabernacle. Yet when there was war with the Philistines, Hopni and Phinehas were entrusted with the care of the ark of the covenant (1 Sam. 4:3-4). Obviously, then, priests who were entrusted with the ark of the covenant weren't necessarily paragons of righteousness. Certainly, Hopni and Phinehas were not "sticklers for the law," even though they had been entrusted with the ark of the covenant.

The corruption of Hopni and Phinehas was so notorious that Yahweh cursed the house of their father Eli and declared that he would "cut off the arm" of the house of Eli's father so that "there would not be an old man in [Eli's] house" (1 Sam. 2:31). As a sign, Yahweh declared that Hopni and Phinehas would both die in one day (v:34), which, as the story was told, was fulfilled in a battle when the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant (1 Sam. 4:11). This tale of Hopni and Phinehas shows that the Bible attached no claim of special righteousness or esteem to priests who were entrusted with the ark of the covenant. Readers should keep this story in mind, because I will soon tie it in with Solomon's banishment of Abiathar, whose life ended in disgrace.

Skeptic X barfs out in pride, "The flushing sound you just heard was [Holding]'s attempt to make Abiathar a 'renowned priest' on the grounds that he had 'carried the ark' going down the toilet." On the contrary, the giant sucking sound you hear is Skeptic X's pride being wrenched out of his ego as we push with the plunger and clear the blockage. Skeptic X has this egomanaical impression that we need to quote his every precious word, otherwise his argument has been robbed. Reality check. Here is how we represented the three paragraphs above:

So now back to Ark carrying. Now even Nazis who carried the Ark got shazammed, and Skeptic X wants to try to muffle that high-level resume item on Abby's list by showing that scoundrels, too, carried the Ark. Too bad for Skeptic X, the examples he chooses are essentially the same as trying to use as an example the guy who was fired for viewing porn at his desk rather than someone like Abby who stuck it out for 40+ years under a pretty serious king. He points to "Eli's sons, Hopni and Phinehas," -- guys who as he admits, ended up with a case of dead for their indiscretions! Rather than countering my point, this only proves it! Abby spent 40+ years in the job and didn't get the divine zap. That sounds like someone who was 99% likely to have the law on the ball to me!

So excuse me, , but what crime was committed here by cutting out all of that boring blather and merely noting that you pointed out that bad guys also carried the Ark? No, not even a misdemeanor. Skeptic X wants all the details blatheringly repeated back so he can daze and hypontize his skeptical readers and make them think quantity equals quality. News flash: When dissected, this one goes where the Vanish does. You want to make hash of this, ? Fine. Skeptic X wants to bark about H and P accompanying the Ark into battle. Well, hello, , every Israelite on the field "accompanied" the Ark into battle that day. Does it say that H and P carried the Ark? NO. Does it say they had any responsibility over deciding who did? NO! Does it say they were in any way "entrusted" with it? NO! It says they were with it. I think Skeptic X will agree that whatever historical merit this story may have, H and P are mentioned in the main here because the writer wants to show that they died in accordance with prophecy. Saying that they were with the Ark when they came is enough to say that it is a device to explain how they got to the battlefield where they were killed. No one else in the party with the Ark would need naming, so there is no grounds at all for assuming that they carried the Ark, or had any control over who carried it, or were anywhere in the procession or company nearest to it. In fact it's far more likely given their character that they were at the end of the party giving the guys in front of them twirling wedgies or hitting them with spitwads. And far beyond that, even if we assume they were A-1 carriers here, this tells us nothing about a long tenure in the job, much less 40 years' worth of performance (and sorry, , Eli's 40 years of serving as judge and priest of Israel don't magically poof over to their credit), and here's the final nail, their boss, unline King David, was a wimp when it came to his own sons (1 Sam. 2:22-5). "Oh, you slept with prostitutes in the Temple? Naughty boys. Slappy-handy." It's an argument on non-data and against contrary data again from . End of comparison.

As another side distraction, wants us to know: "...has anyone else noticed how the duration of reigns and other events in the Bible had a coincidental way of lasting 40 years?" No, but I have noticed how Stupid Skeptics seek out such events and pretend that there is a problem because of it. Our response: Yeah, what of it? How many times does the number 20 and 30 or 70 appear in such contexts? Who cares if they used a round number? If it was 38.5 years rather than 40, and they rounded it to 40 to make a symbolic point, and readers would recognize this, who cares? Only and those of similar former fundy-literalist mindset could think that this means diddly or constitutes a mistake or probelm of some sort. Get a grip, guys, you're not in Kansas anymore.

Next distraction up: Yahweh's curse on Eli's house. Skeptic X wants to make a big deal over this prophecy, which was fulfilled, the text tells us, when Abby was dropped by Solomon. Skeptic X thinks we skipped something meaningful here. Did we? About as meaningful as a juice harp concert in context. Pray tell, what does this curse have to do with Abby's performance as a priest in that 40-year term? Any guesses?

None?

Does the curse say, "Therefore Yahweh , the God of Israel, declares: 'I promised that your house and your father's house would minister before me forever.' But now Yahweh declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. The time is coming when your descendants will be lousy priests who won't be able to follow the law if it kicks them in the butt'"?

No?

Did it say this when it was repeated to Samuel, which Skeptic X thinks is so all-fired important that he needs to quote it again and again?

NO?

So the real question is not, why did we pass over it (as we should have, but we didn't -- we said later that "This doesn't make any poor reflection on Abby at all" after quoting another place where Skeptic X noted this), but why is Skeptic X wasting our time yapping about it? Oh, we know! It's to daze and distract the gullible skeptics he serves, and that is why he wants it all parroted back again.

How silly of us not to bow to 's bag of Trix.

then whines a wee bit about "personal attacks and insults" which he supposes I use to "try to distract attention from [my] complete inability to answer my rebuttal." That's spin for, "he's pointing out my painfully obvious lack of relevant training, and doing it in a creative way that galls me, and since I can't deny it, I'll pretend it is a distraction tactic." What? And Skeptic X's little baits about "would-be apologist" and so forth are just an honest appraisal for the masses? Uh huh. If you can't eat your own grits, , then go drink the Metamucil. But feeling a little stung, he gargles, "By the way, that 'Bam Bam Bible College' I graduated from is consistently ranked in Newsweek magazine as one of the top universities in the South." That's nice, Skeptic X. Where did it rank in Newsweek's survey for the years YOU were there? Oh? It didn't, or did it? It runs down to that learned a fundy hermeneutic when he went to Bam Bam, and kept it up to this day, and has an illusion of self-competence that makes him think he can respond to real scholars like Malina, Rohrbaugh, Speiser, and whoever else he likes by spitting hayseed in the air.

My take is that his alma mater ranked high because they were prompted to improve by the embarrassment of turning an incompetent like Skeptic X loose on the streets. And I know that for a fact the same way that Skeptic X knows I was "laid off" from my prison job.

And no, , we didn't say you ever drank beer. We asked, "Was his 30 years of service at his community college accomplished by eating chips and drinking beer and telling students to write papers only if they felt like it?" The point is you most very likely DIDN'T do that, for otherwise you never would have made it 30 years in one job, that is, unless your boss liked beer too and you bribed him with six-packs of Coors and Miller Lite. But you must be smoking or drinking something that gets you out of order, because you still can't get past that problem of spreading gossip like that I was "laid off" from my job. Come again? See here.

And now we get to where Skeptic X hit his head on the wall using the BAGD lexicon and tried to use it to foist a thesis that epi in Mark 2:26 was used to say that David was "before" Abiathar in a judicial sense. Skeptic X spends a lot of time replying on this one, even re-repeating his earlier arguments as though we avoided them (which we didn't), because he knows he made an Osama-sized bungle in arguing and he needs the fluff to keep his gullible skeptical followers from seeing the error. In the end, though, he ends up growing about five more feet and cramming them all in his mouth. His first apparent miff is that we didn't re-repeat all the cites he offered where epi meant "before" in a judicial sense. Well, who gives a loo? If it isn't a judicial "before" then he can cites 500 million examples of it in that sense, and it still won't magically poof Mark 2:26 out of being the "time" sense that BAGD, the commentaries, and all Bible versions but the two (now three, at best) Skeptic X could dig our from under his heap say it is. By Skeptic X's own rules of engagement, this means he has lost with excessive shame attached. He's under the gun by 9 million to 1, and he isn't Superman with a Greek sigma on his chest. There's my reply on that, so live with it.

Then Skeptic X plugs that old straw man of my alleged professed expertise in Biblical languages -- a product of his own paranoia (see here) -- and burbles, "And 17 commentaries on Mark are all the commentaries that have been written on this biblical book?" Fuss Skeptic X your face falls off, . If 17 commentaries agree, then that's a fair sign that ALL agree and we can say ALL agree. If you have issues with that, then lay down the showboat pole and hustle your hiney out to the library to find commentaries that disagree. Then tell us why they disagree. Of course since that means legwork as opposed to sitting burping in your undershirt, I'm not holding my breath. I mean ALL in the same way you now say you meant EVERYTHING -- Mr. Church of Christ Hermeneutic. By the way, Mr. No Hack with the Spell Check -- what is a "hackword"? That's rather an ironic miscue, isn't it? "Eye doon't du hackworkk -- I chek karefully whut eye Rite." Pfft.

Skeptic X wants to know, apparently to salve his damaged self-esteem, whether any of those 17 commentaries think that Mark 2:26 is in error on Abiathar. Some do, some don't, and have various ideas about how the reading came to be. Only two mention Casey's idea, and neither one argues against it; one agrees with it. (By the way, , you need to get your thinking cap out of the wash again. The commentaries can't "disagree" with Casey's solution if they don't know about it or don't mention it. Casey published his book in 1998, and how many of those commentaries post-date 1998? Only two that I recall. D'oh! It's another case of Skeptic X asking why the KJV doesn't agree with the work of a 20th century scholar!) So by extension, , if you want to make an issue like this, go out and find commentaries that take epi in the judicial sense you were trying to foist, and show what arguments they use to prove that BAGD, etc. are wrong in reading it in a time sense. This is why Skeptic X is at the bottom of the fish tank cleaning the pebbles -- he thinks "majority view" without critical analysis is enough to win the day. Our point has always been that it isn't and Skeptic X doesn't have the mental cajones to go beyond such Simple Simon tactics. But hey, Skeptic X -- pay attention to what Anchor said: "...it is difficult to see how Mark could have made such an error when the reference was to the incident with David at Nob where he accepted the consecrated bread from Ahimelech." In other words, they don't think your option 1 was too easy to swallow either. Same for those the Interpreter's Bible refers to that suspect a gloss as opposed to a mistake by Mark. So think about it, Skeptic X: the scholars are not all convinced it's a mistake by Mark, and that's because it would be too obvious a mistake for an educated writer to make. But of course Skeptic X the freethinker would have no problem telling such scholars that they are "thinking like inerrantists" while he is much smarter than they are. That's the self-confidence being incompetent and not knowing it will get you.

But anyway, Skeptic X now tries to wash his hands with a truckload of Lava to get rid of that judicial epi he so glarlingly promoted the first round, and now spits it out like a spoiled child who no longer wants his lollipop. "I don't particularly 'want' it to be 'before' or 'in the time of.'" The heck he didn't. No one's buying that backpedal but your stoolies who would think it brilliant if you answered a question on Greco-Roman rhetoric by blowing your nose on the complete works of Cicero. As for the Hosea 1:4 issue, we bent your rusty nail and broke your ballpeen hammer on uncritical use of translations here, where you will also find a funny link about that software error I made, written with some help from one of your dizzied fans who likes bananas.

So again, after more dazzling wasting of space quoting the now three NT versions he has found which he thinks agree with him (though how it is clear that "at" or "on" Abiathar denotes a judicial review is one of those Scooby Doo mysteries -- so was David sitting or standing "on" the high priest while Abby was judging him??), we get to where I nailed Skeptic X for prostituting BAGD, and he tries to distract the gullible skeppies by offering the usual charge that gives them the tiSkeptic Xation they're looking for, yep, the old "Holding left something out" shazam. He then re-inserts the whole blamed thing he said, but it's another of those cases where he's just too oblivious to see that the argument is irrelevant. Since we have to return to preschool here to get Skeptic X off his duff, we'll do that. His beef is that examples like this:

Luke 4:27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of [epi] the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

...are "meant to say that the curing of Naaman happened during the active prophetic ministry of the prophet Elisha." In other words, epi would suggest that that person is referred to at the time they held the office specified.

He'll repeat this argument again a few times to daze the thralls, but we'll have the respect to only reply to it once. News flash, : Since my argument is that the word in Mark 2:26 isn't denoting the office of the high priest, but is rather describing Abby as a great priest, there is no "during the active holding of this office" to appeal to, and even your stretch to make "under the administration of" the meaning is on dry ground and gathering dust. GET IT? If the point is that Abby was a great and renowned priest, then the "active" time is his entire life, when he and the people and the other factors influencing HIM were around to make him a great priest. This is simple enough that all of my readers seem to have figured it out, but Skeptic X and his McDisciples just don't seem to have a clue. Skeptic X though does drop plenty of McClues showing his cluelessness. He seems to think I complained about his lack of saying what edition of BAGD he used and what page his stuff was on because I wouldn't find epi in there otherwise. No, I complained because it seemed obvious from his reference to only "Arndnt and Gingrich" -- with no reference to Bauer, or Danker -- that he was probably using a badly outdated version, which turns out to be true, as he admits now to using the 1960 edition. I am not saying there were any additions to the epi entry in the interim, but it tells us enough about Skeptic X's arrogance and poor methodolgy that it doesn't occur to him that, hey, maybe there have been some new bits of data collected in the past 40 years of detailed scholarship that have informed matters better. But of course this is a guy who thinks that all of those Biblical studies journals are nothing but Biblical scholars writing essays on what they did over summer vacation. The idea that anyone could have a new insight, or that there might be new discoveries, doesn't enter his closed little mind for a minute. That's the expected effect of teaching English for 30 years, most likely: There can't be any "new insights" into grammar or one's native language.

Skeptic X goes on to bore the reader with a description of what he found in his old AG, all of which does nothing to circumvent that he made a bonehead error trying to use it to support his thesis of the Mark 2:26 epi meaning a sense of "before a judicial authority". "Under the administration of" is not the same thing despite Skeptic X's Church of Christ evasive-exegetical attempt to mash them together as though they meant the same thing. We are "under the administration" of George W. Bush, but if we appear in court right now George W. Bush is not our judge and jury. No weaselling out of this one, Skeptic X. You erred, and that's all there is to it. Save face now while there is still time.

"In the time of" is what the 2000 BAGD gives as an allowed meaning for Mark 2:26, and which we agree with. The Mark 2:26 cite is not in the same section as the 1 Tim. 6:13 cite, and that is all there is to it. BAGD does not regard the Mark 2:26 epi as meaning "before a judicial authority" in the same way it regards the 1 Tim. 6:13 epi as meaning "before" Pilate in a judicial sense. That fizzles, stomps, and blows out of the atmosphere Skeptic X's misguided and mistaken attempt to prostitute the scholars of BAGD for the sake of his "judicial authority" interpretation. Trying to evade by saying it "doesn't really matter" or by re-re-repeating what was written to confuse the gullible skeppies in the crowd won't save Skeptic X's tuckus from this embarrassing error/obfuscation that is of the same species of magnitude as his "Holding wants me to pay for 90% of his website" buffoonery. Understand well the issue: Skeptic X reported rightly where the Mark 2:26 cite was in AG. That's not the issue. The issue is that he did it in the same context as trying to promote his "judicial authority" interpretation as though some magic rub-off could occur turning it into a "judicial authority" reference like 1 Tim. 6:13, even though BAGD puts such cites as 1 Tim. 6:13 in an entirely separate section. Spare the readers the guff, Skeptic X -- you were doing one of two things: you were either reading AG wrong (far less likely IMO, based on indeed what was written), or else were trying to dishonestly or incompetently mash together two separate entries to try to support your "judicial authority" meaning scam, trying to make "under the administration of" mean that Abby was the judge over the situation. (Note that the "under the administration of" works under the assumption that the person in context is an office-holder; if the reference was to some poor farmer named Jerekiah, would it refer to a time "under the administration of" Farmer Jerekiah?) Either way it's a booboo that needs a big, big band-aid, and that is the sorrowful state to which the King of Errancy has indeed been reduced.

It's worth noting next just how far down the Simple Simon Scale Skeptic X is these days. In response to my note of how he likes to play the "Quote the English Versions to Prove Your Point" game, he writes:

I have long noticed that he ridicules the quoting of different versions, because he usually is in a situation in which he is trying to sell some oddball meaning of Greek or Hebrew words that give "nuances" and "insights" into what the biblical writers really meant but the translators of the different versions all seemed to have missed. That is a major hazard of being a biblical inerrantist, because a biblical skeptic can take just about any translation, accept what it says, and identify error after error in the Bible. This puts the inerrantist into the position of having to argue that the translators really didn't understand the subtleties of Greek and Hebrew. You can bet your life, however, that if [Holding] could ever find 20+ translations that agreed with whatever spin he is putting on a passage to explain away an "alleged" discrepancy, he would break his neck to do it. However, being so consistently in a position where he has to argue that the Bible didn't really mean what it was clearly saying, he has to pretend that simple reliance on what versions of the Bible say is "an absurd rule."

Oddball meaning? That's the vocab of the man drinking beer in his undershirt and belching to his girlfriend that he could fly a jet as well as one of the Blue Angels. "Oddball" is the word used by street preachers to describe analysis of Paul's letters with Greco-Roman rhetoric. "Oddball" is the sort of word used by KJV Onlyists to describe those who think we need to read the Greek and Hebrew to get a better understanding of the text. "Oddball" is the sort of word used by Acharya S to say that she knows better than a scholar of Hinduism what Hinduism really teaches, and that indeed the life of Jesus was based on the life of Krishna. Go ahead and bet your life, -- I don't play that absurd "count the translations" game (except as a satire on YOU), which is the province of simple minds who don't have the ability to get into depth scholarship, and whose egos are too stuffed with confetti to get beyond the idea that what data they perceive on the surface and what initial judgment they make on matters might be wrong, and who also bring up the same canards time and again (i.e., I am passing myself off as "an expert in biblical languages" by merely referring to Strong's!) because of their paranoia. Skeptic X can't bring himself to admit he's been inconsistent here, and never will. It's like this: he wanted to play the Majority Versions Rule game with Hosea 1:4, but when it comes to Mark 2:26 and the "judicial authority" meaning, that Rule is superseded by the Skeptic X McVariance to say what you please. We repeat again: That he hasn't the wherewithal to answer arguments brought forth by scholars who know their business is just too bad. Calling them "unsupported assertions" and pretending that citing those who know their business is not "logical argumentation," it is the tactic of the ignorant who can't answer the arguments with contrary data, and of the chihuahua who thinks he has frightened the Great Dane who won't answer his challenges, when in fact the battle was not engaged because the Great Dane didn't even notice the chihuahua yapping at his feet.

And as a counter-reminder -- the scholar (Cross) whose work Skeptic X presented lately in the Land Promise debate ended up agreeing far more with our view than with Skeptic X's. That's where "hackword" [sic] will get you.

After re-re-re-re-repeating his basic arguments in the "dirty debate" fashion we have noted enough times in detail now, we get to a place where Skeptic X tries to bring in a new character, Joab:

I could also cite Joab as an example that disputes [Holding]'s claim that 40 years of service to David must have meant that Abiathar was brimming full of righteousness. Joab also served David for 40 years, but he too sided with Adonijah in the power struggle to succeed David. Solomon ordered his execution, even though Joab had served David faithfully for 40 years.

Skeptic X babbles more about Joab, but it's all throwing darts the wrong way again and Skeptic X hitting himself in the behind instead. There's a big, big difference between Abiathar and Joab that makes their situations different, and it has to do with a concept that is well-known even today, and it was even "worse" in Biblical times. Ready? It's spelled N-E-P-O-T-I-S-M. Abby of course was no kin to David. But Joab? That's another story. Joab was the son of one of David's sisters, Zeruiah. Family loyalty was prime in these days; what we would call nepotism was expected and approved (this is one of those sociological issues that Skeptic X keeps in his Baffling BS file) so David could not exactly "fire" him with ease, and note that when he did do so, giving command of the military to Amasa, it was only after Joab had crossed the line within a matter of the family by killing David's closer relative, his son Absalom. It was also only after another "family matter" -- preferring Adonijah over Solomon -- that David pulled it all together and advised Solomon to do away with him. So, sorry, , Jo