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Scrambled Skeptic X with Sausage, Part 2More Pathological Literalism from the Former Fundy FarmsteadJames Patrick HoldingIn an article released parallel to this one we diagnosed Skeptic X with a case of pathological literalism, one to add to whatever other psych disorders than may afflict him this week such as the egotism that makes him think he knows better than scholars about things like the meaning of oikoumene and the presence of guilt in ancient rural societies. We here turn to Skeptic X's next manifestation of these disorders, in response to his treatment of preterism, and the focus now being on the symbolic nature of such passages as relate the tragedy of the sun, moon and stars (hereafter SMS). Skeptic X again sees these as predictions of literal cosmic events; we have shown that they symbolically represent the destruction of the governing bodies in Jerusalem. As has been recent practice we will put our original words in bold italics, Skeptic X's words in italics, and our responses in normal type. If that's the case then one wonders about "non-inerrantist" liberal-moderate scholars like G. B. Caird who thought the same, describing such passages as "prophetic hyperbole" which used terms of cosmic collapse to describe God's judgment on nations. Oh, well, if G. B. Caird agreed with [Holding], then I must be wrong. Whey didn't [Holding] let us know long ago what Caird thought about this? It's not far off to say if Caird say X, and Skeptic X says Y, then Skeptic X must be wrong. Skeptic X as always lacks the intellectual cajones to take on a Caird, or a Rohrbaugh, and hence resorts to such whining rejoinders as "why didn't he say so" (who cares? would Skeptic X have replied any different six weeks ago?) and "...he made no attempt to support Caird's claim" (and Skeptic X makes no effort to refute it, he just thinks it's enough to sit in his La-Z-Boy and burp against scholars who have spent years studying the subject) and "[h]e didn't even quote Caird, so we don't even know if Caird himself even attempted to support this claim. I have found that many times references like these, if checked out, will turn out to be just assertions that the 'scholars' themselves made without bothering to try to prove them." Not that Skeptic X would ever soil his hands making such checks, until cornered, or that a scholar like Caird deserves such treatment from a cornpone ex-CoC preacher with round-trip tickets for his ego, or that what Caird actually said was more along the lines of instructions for care and feeding of budgies. Skeptic X is buying himself time with this sort of pathetic excuse-making and implication of dishonesty, but now it is time for the clock to strike 12 and for the mouse to vacate the premises. Skeptic X wants to hear from Caird? Let him go get Caird and educate himself if he has the nerve. Saying nothing about the evidence for such symbols being used in the Biblical text, his sole justification for arguing that Isaiah, et al must have thought that these astral events would literally occur (and pay attention, X, I didn't quote MacArthur as "proof" but as a lesser example of the sort of hyper-literalism you are also victim to, and also try to explain your way out of) is a diatribe on how those stupid ancients thought that stars really were little cinders that could fall to the ground. I believe the record will show that I correctly quoted [Holding], who had quoted MacArthur as saying, "(A)lmost no one expects stars to fall to the earth." What [Holding] did was to identify MacArthur as an anti-preterist who had made the statement above but had then gone on to "suggest" that Isaiah 13 "is also a scene of worldwide judgment." [Holding]'s intention, then, was to use what he considered to be the inconsistency of a "dispensationalist" to support the preterist position that the heavenly signs in Matthew 24:29ff were symbolic. The issue, which Skeptic X evades because he has no other choice, is that I did not quote MacArthur as "proof" of anything (unless I was trying to "prove" MacArthur held the view he did, which I was not trying to do) and did not use him to "support" the preterist position in the least (but rather, to show the lengths gone to by to dispensationalists to support THEIR view). Skeptic X has been caught with his foot in his mouth again, and is here yet again blowing his nose as loud as he can to cover his embarrassing error in reading. But we'll probably never see him explain this one: You'll Pay for Your Insolence! I quote myself from earlier work: 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. I gave this as a debate condition before I knew that Skeptic X would soon have his own website, but I'd like to bring it up again. Note the highlighted phrases. Here is what Skeptic X gets out of the above, as he reports it to his TSR readers: One condition was that I would have to pay 90% of the cost of maintaining his website, which would be 90% of $35 per month or $378 per year...in other words, [Holfing] was saying that he would debate me on my site and his if I would just agree to pay him $3024 before the debate begins. Shall we correct this little episode of adult attention deficit disorder? Or is it obvious enough? The whole website? Did I say that? Skeptic X is verbose and wastes a lot of space with fluff, but I suspect the cost would have been no more than $5 over 8 years for even the longest, fluffiest item he could produce, which would never occupy my entire website. And we'll also never see a real admission of error or an apology for this gaffe either, or for this one, or...are you kidding? Get real. In his--er, DeMar's--"Olivet Discourse," [Holding] quoted Isaiah 13:10; 34-3-5; Ezekiel 32:6-8; and Amos 8:9, which all contained references to "astral" upheavals that would accompany the destruction of Babylon, Edom, and Egypt, and then argued that since none of these things happened, that shows that these signs were merely "apocalyptic." In other words, he was trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. No, I was trying to prove a trend by citing examples, and Skeptic X is trying to avoid engagement of the issue by hauling up this stale canard about inerrancy (as well as the "er, DeMar" notation, which is his manipulative way of avoiding dealing with the ideas, or covering his inadequacies in doing so, by focusing attention on a person). Inerrancy isn't at issue and doesn't come into the picture. If we were asking questions about rabbinic documents, and Skeptic X was uneducated enough to argue that a rabbi was being literal and not hyperbolic when he reacted to the news of his excommunication by saying, "The world was then smitten: a third of the olive crop, a third of the wheat and a third of the barley crop," part of the answer would remain citing other examples of such hyperbolic language until the brick Skeptic X uses for thinking either conceded, or, as is now the case, made a fool of himself not conceding. This is why Skeptic X also uses his canard of planting diversions on other topics (want to wag in Ezekiel 32? deal with this and clamp it until you have done so, in detail; want to wag in Isaiah and Tyre? My report here) to score points. I can do it, too. I propose Skeptic X debate me about my article here and Glenn Miller's article here, which I support 100% in argumentation. What? He hasn't responded yet? And then there's the old standby of putting words in your opponent's mouth and then criticizing "their" argument for polemical effect: As for what the ancient Hebrews understood stars to be, is [Holding] actually contending that they knew that stars were actually other "suns" that were billions of miles away? If so, what is his evidence? Is it [Holding]'s position that the ancient Hebrews didn't think that streaking meteorites were "falling stars"? If so, how does he know? How does he think that the expression "falling star" originated unless people in prescientific times thought that streaking meteorities were falling stars? Skeptic X whines that I "waved at this in passing" and "made no real attempt to reply to it," which is his spin, and irrelevant anyway. Regardless of what the Hebrews thought the stars were; regardless of what they thought such stars could do (and remember that by their definition, "stars" included meteorites and could indeed fall to earth) is irrelevant to whether or not this is a figure of speech. If they did know their were suns billions of miles away, Skeptic X would spin that into a case of them thinking of an even greater solar disaster. In short, it doesn't matter. Even if they did think that stars could literally fall from the sky, that doesn't change a whit whether these passages are literal or symbolic, any more than that the reality of us being able to get ants in our pants proves that we can't use that as a figurative expression. We'll see that it is Skeptic X who waves this off with his usual one-dimensionalism, and the "stars: tiny or big?" debate is nothing more than a diversion he uses to impute a measure of stupidity on the ancients for the sake of the gullible Skeptical reader. None of these things literally happened to Babylon, Edom, etc.--and Isaiah, et al. did not think that they would. "These passages all tell a story with the same set of motifs: YHWH's victory over the great pagan city; the rescue and vindication of his true people who had been suffering under it; and YHWH's acclamation as king." [Wr.JVG. 356-7] Matthew 24:29 is symbolic for judgment, for the vindication of the new covenant over the old covenant, and their respective members, and Christ's new reign--and thus fits within the paradigm of a 70 fulfillment. Some points as proof [Dem.LDM, 143; Wr.JVG, 354ff]. So readers can see [Holding]'s method of "proving" a point. He quotes a writer, who makes an unsupported assertion, and then that becomes [Holding]'s proof. Right! I quote writers with experience and scholarship that would make Skeptic X's head spin, and he doesn't provide contrary answers; he just calls them names and says bunk like, "Both writers are committed preterists and both books were written in defense of the preterist position. How is that for objective evidence?" Yeah! "X Skeptic X is a committed errantist and his newsletter books was written in defense of the errantist position. How is that for objective evidence?" It never occurs to Skeptic X that these same batches of malarkey can be thrown right back in his own face, and he justifies it by fantasizing that I would make the same cornpone mistakes he has: "What [Holding] has done here would be parallel to my quoting books by Dennis McKinsey or Dan Barker in support of my position. If I did this, it would take [Holding] about a second to challenge the objectivity of my supporting evidence." Like heck it would. I'd challenge it on Barker and McKinsey's credentials, but merely because they happen to be errantists or atheists? No. Skeptic X is having a delusional fantasy he needs to justify his own mistakes in thinking. [Holding] quoted several Old Testament passages that prophesied the destructions of Babylon, Egypt, and Edom, which would be accompanied by the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, and then concluded that these all had to have been figurative prophecies, because "(n)one of these things literally happened to Babylon, etc." Because none of these events literally happened, [Holding] arbitrarily declared that "Isaiah et al did not think that they would." Arbitrary? No, it is a matter of pattern of examples that prove the point. In the linked article above we had this same discussion wherein Skeptic X continually argued for rampant stupidity by the Hebrews, which is really his only option to keep his boat afloat. In this case he is proposing that Hebrew prophets used this same imagery to predict literal events time and time again, and one would think that they'd a) have to switch images or stop using them; b) do what they could to cover it up. There is no evidence for either; if anything the pattern suggests that they had no qualms about it. With or without inerrancy, the most viable explanation for this continuation is not, as Skeptic X suggests, a parallel to his own past ignorance in reading the Bible (which is no match to begin with!) and that of others, but that the images meant something which was considered to have been satisfactorily represented. Skeptic X says I offered no proof of this use of imagery; what he means is, I didn't provide anything he couldn't construct a bigoted excuse to explain away. He also says I never explained what literal message was behind these images; I did, and he didn't pay attention, or by now has forgotten: "The combined imagery of sun, moon and stars reflects complete political entities. Jesus' prediction refers to nothing more or less than the judgment upon the nation of Israel." I also provided examples of stellar imagery for political entities -- evidence we see even today in the use of stars on Old Glory, and the Rising Sun on the Japanese flag, and the crescent moon on Middle Eastern flags. Skeptic X answered none of this, because he can't. Why this doesn't mean such events must be interpreted literally even so isn't explained. If it isn't explained, then just how does [Holding] know that "such events" should not have been interpreted literally? What is wrong with applying the primary rule of literary interpretation that says that the language of a text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning? We also had this canard in the other article, and the response is the same: If this is true, then the repeated use of the SMS motif in the same situations (upheaval of a political entity -- and as Witherington adds, did eclipses only happen during such events?), and that the use of these symbols did not wear away in spite of obvious literal "failure", then we have our compelling reasons all by themselves. We have already our "contextual reasons why we should think that the writers were speaking figuratively when they referred to falling stars and the darkening of the sun and moon," and that is even WITHOUT the data on stellar symbols for governing bodies and the Hebrew use of idiom, which are just more nails in the coffin. What Skeptic X means is, "I want a reason that I can't find a hypothetical excuse to get out of" -- which means, he won't accept any explanation at all. and that meteorites were called "stars" is irrelevant, for the word "star" did not mean "an enormous, flaming ball of gas; see also, Skeptic X"), Well, of course, the ancient Near Eastern "Semitic mind" didn't understand star to mean that. The ancients of that time thought that they were specks of light fixed into the "firmament," so that is why they thought that streaking meteorites were "falling stars." If they had known that they were flaming orbs several times the size of the earth, they wouldn't have prophesied that "stars" would fall from "heaven." Skeptic X's argument here is one of equivocation. He has faulted the ancients for using an umbrella term ("stars") to describe a variety of objects they had very little knowledge of, as though he expects new words to be created to differentiate between the objects just for his bigoted and narrow-minded convenience. This is misplaced since we still refer to "shooting stars" today in a popular sense with no concern that this terminology is technically incorrect. Skeptic X may as well say, "If we knew that they were flaming orbs several times the size of the earth, we wouldn't speaks of 'stars' that 'shoot'." But again, this is all a diversion, since regardless of beliefs about stars or about worldly objects, as noted above, language can still use literal objects and their actions in the form of a figure of speech. That it was a literal possibility in anyone's mind is not a determining factor, and it is Skeptic X who is trying to force modern knowledge onto ancient persons and make them use figures of speech and verbiage that conform to his own notions. Next up, Skeptic X imagines to put me in a bind by crawling his way through Is. 13 and asking Stupid Skeptic Questions about "what the writer intended his readers to understand." So let's play Wheel of Fortune, shall we? To begin: Isaiah 13:1 The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. 2"Lift up a banner on the high mountain, Raise your voice to them; Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.... Questions for [Holding]: There is an obvious mixture of both literal and figurative language in this part of the text. I'll be more than happy to give contextual reasons to support the language that I consider figurative, but I want to question [Holding] about the parts that I consider literal usages. Was this a prophecy against Babylon proper, or was Isaiah the son of Amoz simply using Babylon "apocalyptically" to mean Nineveh or Tyre or some other place? Was Isaiah even the son of Amoz, or was he just speaking metaphorically? Could Isaiah have been the son of, say, Oscar or Elmer? "Babylon" itself has the ability to carry a figurative meaning for some other city; commentators think for example that "Babylon" means Rome or Jerusalem in 1 Peter 5:13. However, that is based on the obvious point that Babylon as a city was not a residence for Christians at this date and Peter would be unlikely to have gone to Babylon. There is moreover no example contemporary with Isaiah of "Babylon" being used that way, as there is evidence of stellar imagery being used to represent peoples and nations, and no data suggesting what "Babylon" would stand for if not Babylon itself, in Isaiah's time. Finally there is no repeated failure of Babylon not falling to suggest a figurative meaning. "Isaiah" may also be a codeword for someone else, but he is a recognized figure in Hebrew history by that name (in the books of Kings) and he uses no other name for himself elsewhere. Thus there is nothing paralleling evidence of stellar imagery being used to represent peoples and nations. Likewise Amoz, and Oscar and Elmer are names that have never been found in Hebrew texts of inscriptions from any date. (I can be a fundaliteralist, too.) If Skeptic X wants to make a case, he'll need something like the evidence of stellar imagery being used to represent peoples and nations. 9Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. 10For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. Questions for [Holding]: When Isaiah said that the "day of Yahweh" would come against Babylon, did he literally mean that it would be "cruel" and would be a day of "both wrath and fierce anger," or did he just mean that it would be a day with a little bit of discomfort but nothing particularly stressful? When he said that Yahweh would "destroy its sinners," did he mean that he would destroy them or was he just speaking figuratively? If the latter, then please explain to us what the intended meaning of the figurative term "destroy" was? Gosh heck, that's hard. Now the phrase "day of Yahweh" is used throughout the OT text to refer to times of war, conquest, and vengeance. Anyone ever known of a war or conquest that was just uncomfortable and stressful? Not that that's all, a "day" can hardly be cruel. Days aren't people and don't do things. Did Yahweh mean "destroy" figuratively? No. Skeptic X doesn't tell us what would constitute a "destruction" whether literal or figurative, and doesn't even tell us what "cruel" would be, for that matter, but I'd say the big I-man was doing the same sort of rah-rah that Pharaoh Ramsses III was doing when he said: I slew the Denyon in their islands, while the Tjekker and Philistines were made ashes. The Sherden and the Washesh of the sea were made non-existent, captured all together and brought on captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore. Hey, see, that's what knowledge of ancient war-imagery will get you. I suppose Skeptic X thinks Rammy put the Tjekker and Philistines in a BBQ grill and got rid of the Sherden and the Washesh by putting them through an anti-matter chamber. Then he also figuratively captured them all. Or maybe he burned the Tjekker in a fire and ground the Sherden to powder. Isn't that nice. Anyway, he did as much to them people as the Medes did to Babylon when they "destroyed" them. Now here's some more education in ancient trash-talk. Skeptic X is probably familiar with the Victory Stele of Merneptah, the first non-Biblical reference to Israel, since sometime in the past he surely wiped his nose on a picture of it. Check some of these lines: Shu who dispelled the
cloud that was over Egypt, Their leading troops
were left behind, Woe to Libyans, they
have ceased to live A great wonder has occurred
for Egypt, This (too) shall be said: Great joy has arisen
in Egypt, The princes are prostrate
saying: "Shalom!" I doubt if Skeptic X takes any of these lines I highlighted any more seriously than he takes Isaiah 13, and he's right not to do so -- it's all an ancient version of "trash talk," a victory dance in the end zone, so to speak. The oracle of war was a place for the victor to strut his stuff and use neener-neener images to do so. Once Is. 13 is understood this way -- rather than in the paradigm of pathological literalism -- Skeptic X and his objections vanish in a puff of acrid smoke. We have found lately one more example of such literature, this time from Assyria. In Ancient Israelite Literature In Its Cultural Context Walton [207] offers these lines from the Neo-Assyrian period: This is the word of Ninlil herself to the king, "Fear not, O Ashurbanipal! Now, as I have spoken, it will come to pass: I shall grant it to you. Over the people of the four languages and over the armament of the princes you will exercise sovereignty...The kings of the countries confer together saying, 'Come, let us rise against Ashurbanipal...The fate of our fathers and our grandfathers [the Assyrians] have fixed: [let not his might] cause divisions among us.' Ninlil answered saying, '[The kings] of the lands [I shall over]throw, place under the yoke, bind their feet in [strong fetters]. For the second time I proclaim to you that as with the land of Elam and the Cimmerians [I shall proceed]. I shall arise, break the thorns, open up widely my way through the briers. With blood I shall turn the land into a rain shower, fill it with lamentation and wailing.... Note that we have here a combination of literal, semi-literal, and figurative language -- unless someone wants to argue that this literally was predicting someone walking through a briarpatch for Ashurby's sake. Practically this is no different than an oracle of Isaiah in format. It is "trash talk" with heavy symbolism. Now Skeptic X demands to know now what I think was the fulfillment of Is. 13:10. I already said what it was for Matthew 24, and maybe Skeptic X forgot. A little later he even throws a temper tantrum: "No, no, no, [Holding] did not explain what these meant. He merely asserted what they meant, but he has yet to take the relevant texts to explicate them and show why the astronomical signs must be understood figuratively. If he claims that he has explained them, then I say that he is either intentionally bluffing in hopes that some will think that he has indeed explained them, or else he has mistaken asserting for explaining." Blase squase, humpty dumpty. We did all of this, and Skeptic X is the confused one who does goofy stuff like say I changed my position on the Land Promise debate because he can't remember what I said in my first article. As a reminder -- please write it down, Skeptic X, repeat it three times, and tattoo it on your right leg if necessary -- the SMS imagery means the destruction of civil authority; so in Matt., it means the government of Judaea; in Is. 13, the government of Babylon. So fill in your own blanks where you have those memories of jingles for Mr. Clean stored away. 11"I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 12I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. 13Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of Yahweh of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger. 14It shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as a sheep that no man takes up; every man will turn to his own people, and everyone will flee to his own land. If the destruction of Babylon was going to be as complete as the description below, then at that time the similes in verse 12 would have been literally fulfilled. A mortal, or person, would have been more rare than fine gold and the golden wedge [pure gold, ASV] of Ophir. If the stars in the constellations, the sun, and moon didn't given their light, then certainly the heavens would be shaken. At any rate, if the language was figurative, as [Holding] claims, it still had intended meaning, so what was that intended meaning? Um, yeah, just like if Rammy did what he said literally, he couldn't have captured all those people he "ashisized". Hmm, has Skeptic X ever been to a football game? Has he ever taken part in macho sports? Probably not, but if he ever did he'd all kinds of trash talk about how "we're gonna destroy you" or "we're gonna blow you out of the stadium" etc. Both Merneptah's victory stele, and Isaiah, can be clearly seen -- like Rammy's words -- as ancient warrior "trash talk". So what's the intended meaning? Essentially, "The Medes are going to win and you're going to lose." Now it's up to Skeptic X, with the parallel of war talk and trash talk in mind, to explain to us why Isaiah thought the earth would shake, etc. And in that view, here are some questions for Skeptic X to answer: That of course leads to these passages: 15Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. 17"Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not regard silver; and as for gold, they will not delight in it. 18Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye will not spare children. Questions for [Holding]: Did Isaiah mean that the statements emphasized in bold print would literally happen? Would everyone be killed as described? Was Yahweh speaking literally in Deuteronomy 22:16 when he commanded the Israelites to "save nothing alive to breathe" in their conquests of cities in Canaan? Were the passages in Joshua (10:40; 11:11) speaking literally when they said that the Israelites, in accordance with what Yahweh had commanded Moses, left none to breathe? If so, why would it be so difficult to assume that Isaiah was speaking literally when he prophesied that everyone in Babylon would be killed? Everyone? Hardly, since the children and women obviously aren't. Duh. Was Isaiah speaking literally when he prophesied that Babylonian children would "be dashed to pieces" before the eyes of their parents? If not, why not? Did Yahweh not inspire a psalmist to pronounce a blessing upon the person who would dash "the little ones" of the Babylonians against stones (Psalm 137:8)? With such examples of Yahweh's mercy and love toward children, why should we not believe that Isaiah was speaking literally as he prophesied the destruction of Babylonian children? Why should we believe Merneptah was speaking literally when he laid down all that trash talk? Isaiah, like Merny, used the image of a typical event of ancient war; to stretch this to say it would happen to every child like the Hebrews had some sort of War Instruction Manual ("1. Lift child. 2. Dash to ground.") that compelled them to do the same to every child, would be rather absurd, and suggests more trash talk, not a literal report. We recommend Skeptic X take lessons in multi-dimensional thinking. Were the wives of the Babylonians to be ravished literally? Didn't Yahweh say to David in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, "I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun" (2 Sam. 12:12)? If Yahweh would consider doing this to David, a man after his own heart, who always did that which was right except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5), why is it so hard to believe that Isaiah literally meant that the wives of the Babylonians would be ravished? Ditto here. I'm sure the Hebrews and other races didn't have an instruction manual, or a complete list they ticked off of all the women in Babylon, or that they ravished the wives after running them through as specified above. I also doubt the Medians would have been particularly into cheap sex with the literal stars falling on their heads and the moon scowling at them. Once again, also, 2 Sam. is a narrative genre. 19And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation; nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. 21But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there 22The hyenas will howl in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged." Nothing literal here? Did Isaiah mean that Babylon would be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah only in an "apocalyptic" sense? If so, please tell us exactly what happened that fulfilled this "apocalyptically." What about the habitation of Babylon? Did Isaiah mean that Babylon would never be inhabited only in an "apocalyptic" sense? If so, exactly what happened that brought about this fulfillment? In other words, how are we able to know that this was fulfilled? In spite of some leanings by the likes of McDowell, who try to apply this prophecy as fulfilled in the modern-day site of Babylon, no -- little literal here. It's an image of desolation like those Merneptah used, indicating defeat and chaos (i.e., the wild animals -- as if hyenas could identify and pick out the citadels, or owls the houses, while avoiding the citadels and Wal-Marts), and Skeptic X sees it about as well as he would from one of those fou-fou art movies imported from France. We get now to where Hyper the Literalist had his talk, and we have him on the line again -- hey Hyper, where ya at? "I'm at the ballpark watching the Mudville McKinseys tar and feather the Skeptic X Titans. Boy, what a mess!" Tar and feather? What's the score? "Ain't no score. The McKinseys hauled out tar and feathers in the first inning and attacked the pitcher after the first strike." Oh. Well, anyway, we'll let you take over from here for a bit. "Thanks. Keep on Skeptic X for that crap he's pulling. Especially that part about paying for 90% of your website. The man needs reading lessons and I mean that literally." Of course you do, Hyper. Here we go: No, Skeptic X wouldn't have to say that this is obviously figurative, because the writer of Daniel took care of that. All I have to do is read what the writer said to know that the language was figurative. Daniel is an unusual prophetic book in that it frequently took the time to explain the meanings of symbols and figures of speech used in its prophecies. The interpretation of symbols began with the famous dream of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2, when Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed about a great image that was made of different types of metal. The mere fact that Nebuchadnezzar called upon the wise men in his kingdom to interpret the dream is compelling textual evidence that the dream was not to be understood literally. However, when Daniel revealed the interpretation, he clearly established that symbolism was intended in the text. "Sorry, Skeptic X, wrong again. I knew it was a dream, but Daniel 8 clearly says, "And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Not "represents" the king of Grecia, but IS. It's in plain English. And he's rapping about Daniel 2, while we're in Daniel 8. He needs to get his act together. I'm skipping to where he gets off his dead horse and actually talks about Daniel 8. You're right about him using distractions, Holding." Daniel asked the "one who stood by" to tell him the truth about the visions, and he [the one who stood by] told Daniel and made known to him the interpretation of the visions. In giving the interpretation, the one who stood by told Daniel that the "great beasts" were four kings that "arise out of the earth." The language of the text is clear enough, then, to show that the "beasts" were not intended literally but metaphorically (figures of speech in which one thing is called another). This brings us back to the literary principle that [Holding] seems unable to grasp. The language of a text is to be interpreted within the context of the words, and figurative meanings are to be assigned to the text if there are compelling reasons to reject literal meanings. If the text flatly says that the "great beasts" were "four kings," that settles the question of whether the language was intended to be figurative. "What the hell is Skeptic X trying to pull? Yeah, it's clear, it's clear that the man thought that the king of 'Grecia' would literally be a goat. He said, the goat IS the king of Grecia. And I already showed that the ancients thought animals could get into politics, so his 'compelling reason' just went down the toilet." The text clearly stated that Daniel was given an interpretation of his "vision," and the interpretation identified the horns on the ram as the kings of Media and Persia and the male goat as the kingdom [king] of Greece. Hence, we have compelling reason to understand that the basic components of this text were not intended to be understood literally. "Look at Skeptic X trying to get away with crap! It says clearly, 'And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.' Not 'kingdom' but king. Now watch him try to get into a 'quote different versions' argument. If he keeps up that crap he can prove anything he wants just by quoting different versions. Uh, hey, Holding! Quote that Editor's note, it has a great laugh!" [Editors Note: You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the section on Caligula, but if you're hoping that it will clarify whatever point [Holding] is trying to make, I'm afraid you'll be dissapointed.] "Haw haw! Holding, you're right about these lazy bums. It's such a tiring effort to scroll or to use your search function on the browser. And they spell "disappointed" with two s's and one p. Hey, isn't this the guy who couldn't find your article? What a loser. Well, since he has trouble with his own language, that means like Skeptic X says, we never have to listen to him again, huh?" I'll resist the temptation to comment on the stupidity of "Daniel and Jesus," because characters who probably didn't exist couldn't have been stupid. Their creators may have been stupid--superstitious would probably be a more appropriate term--but fictional characters could be no more than what their creators made them. As for what "Daniel" meant about animals, I have shown by linguistic analysis of the text that Daniel meant for readers to understand that the animals in his prophecy were metaphorical symbols. "Skeptic X didn't show bunk. He just asserted it and he didn't prove it. Just like he says you do, Holding. What a hypocrite! He's proving inerrancy by assuming it. Typical, and in the fundamentalist's pay yet again. Hey, Holding, maybe you ought to debate Skeptic X on Jesus existing." I think I will, Hyper. Skeptic X can consider that a challenge. Thanks for your input again. Back to the other world, then. In the next section, in addition to for the 5th time not "getting it" about his "90% of the website" comment (it may sink through in 2004, perhaps) Skeptic X inserts the hayseed comment that maybe now we can understand why "rational people don't give a rat's *ss what he or DeMar or Whitney or others with preterist axes to grind think about the meaning of Isaiah's astronomical signs. We want to see sound linguistic evidence, and that is going to be hard to produce for someone who often has trouble just writing coherent sentences." Um hm. We gave plenty, and Skeptic X forgot it or excused it away; and by the same token I suppose "rational people," Skeptic X thinks, should give a rat's patoot about what he, with an errantist axe to grind and no relevant training, thinks about anything at all. But then again, how about someone who has trouble remembering what persons are holding what positions? We cited Whitney on Jer. 7:22, not on preterism. Whitney said zip about preterism. Skeptic X has best check his socks and make sure they are both the same color. In the meantime, only freethinking arrogance can be so bold as to think to do things like dismiss Tacitean experts as Herbert Cutner did. but do you suppose that the Jews didn't look back on these oracles against Babylon, etc. and say, "Huh, that's funny. The sun didn't go black when Babylon fell." Well, the fact is that Babylon fell to the forces of Cyrus without a battle. There is no record of the land having been made desolate (Isaiah 13:9), of men becoming more rare than fine gold (v:12), of infants being dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes (v:16), of Babylonian wives being ravished (v:16), of Babylon becoming uninhabited (v:20), of Arabs being afraid to pitch their tents there (v:20), etc., etc., etc. Now Skeptic X is getting the drift. Just like there is no actual record of Rammy burning Tjekkers. It took him long enough to get that it was "trash talk". BTW, we already noted elsewhere that the Persians were referred to under the umbrella of the "Medes" in Isaiah's time. Skeptic X next whines that we "don't really know what nonbiblical writers of the time may have thought, because the literature of that period has gone the way of 'the acts of Solomon,' 'chronicles of King David,' 'chronicles of the Kings of Israel,' and other contemporary literature that didn't survive." On the contrary, we DO know what they thought, precisely because Isaiah DIDN'T go the way of these other documents, as he indeed would have, had he been in error on such an obvious and confirmable point and had indeed there been this consortium of conspiratorial priestly editors running around the dog track. "If books had been written to challenge the fulfillment of prophecy claims by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other revered prophets," Skeptic X recites simple-mindedly, "it isn't very likely that they would have survived in a culture dominated by the Yahwist victors." Now get that. He says we don't know all that other stuff, but he still knows all about those priests he imagines were in on the conspiracy. What a selective knowledge base. So after demanding proof yet again he has already been given about the meaning of the SMS, we get to where I did remind Skeptic X of this: They knew people had been metaphorically compared to stars, as in the cites we gave as parallels and which Skeptic X ignored (see also Is. 14:12, and Hag. 2:6 for more such imagery). I have explained umpteen times that my first reply to [Holding] was necessarily limited, because his cutting and pasting of truncated references from Gary DeMar and company had taken 10 pages, so I had only five pages left to reply. Since then I have replied in detail to his various "proof texts," so we will see if he will answer my rebuttals. Tough boogies. If Skeptic X didn't have the space to do a proper reply, he should have waited for the next issue of his junk rag to do a proper job, or not wasted space wagging in the Petrine reference as he did. That excuse resounds with the same hollow thud you get when you thump Skeptic X's noggin, and no, actually, he still hasn't replied to the material in question from my original article. He does, however, notice the refs to Haggai and Is. 14:12 in front of him, complains about a lack of "explication" (sorry! forgot that I needed to cover for Skeptic X's insensibility, yet again), then offers the cites: Isaiah 14:12 "How you are fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! 13For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; 14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' 15Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. "Well," Skeptic X grumps, "I really don't see anything to discuss in this passage, because [Holding] said above that people were metaphorically compared to stars and then cited this text, so all I need to say is that I agree with him." He also agrees with Haggai being figurative. Whazzat? Did Skeptic X just have a revelation? Think he'll now figure out that SMS means people, not objects? Oh, you just lost that bet! Nah, he still thinks we need "compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning"! Well, he just got them, and has been getting them, and he doesn't like them, and has only excuses for them ("They were dumb enough to believe it could happen literally, so that is what they must have meant!") from the land of Pathological Literalism. He's been compelled like an inmate being dragged to confinement, but the kicking and screaming just keeps on and on. And he has another trap on his posterior to show us: Oh, by the way, [Holding], do you think that Yahweh literally rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24), or was this just another case of "apocalyptic" language? Do you think that Lot's wife was literally changed into a pillar of salt (v:26), or was this also just figurative language? Gosh, that was hard. Gen. 19 is written in a narrative format (though the language of the pillar of salt, actually, I do not take to be a metamorphosis, but a case of being covered up like the victims of Vesuvius). Not a prophetic oracle. Skeptic X did miss classes on genre at Bam Bam. Anyway, after Skeptic X repeats some of the same canards as before, we get to: It's especially a goofy assumption for McLiteralist Skeptic X to make since by this reckoning such events would have happened some 4-5 times in literal history, and no one, especially the Jews who should have been having to deal with the failure of such literal predictions over and over again, ever saw a need to explain the failure. Skeptic X's answer? Uh, NONE, actually. He offers instead a diversion about how I have "refused even to consider defending the fulfillment of biblical prophecies" (meaning of course, the specific ones he has in mind, since this very debate is an issue of "fulfillment of Biblical prophecies") and claims to have addressed it already, but he hasn't other than by positing a conspiracy. In short, back in the same circle. Skeptic X assumes errancy to prove errancy and fills in the gaps with unnamed conspirators as needed. What was that again? Ah: T: 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: &%$#*#! I'd suggest Skeptic X hook up with Acharya S and give her some suggestions for her ideas such as that the Jews were actually moon worshippers in the NT period, and all the documents that prove it were destroyed. Scholarship by paranoid implication! And now get this excuse: The winners always write history, so in the struggle between Yahwism and other Canaanite deities, the Yahwists won. How likely is it that they would have allowed the works of those who may have challenged Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, et al to continue circulation? [Holding] cannot possibly know that no one of that time ever challenged these prophecies. The book of Jeremiah told of prophetic competition that occurred in the time when Jerusalem was struggling for its survival against Babylonian forces. These rivalries were recorded in detail in 23:9ff; 27:9ff; and 29:24ff. If Shemaiah had won the prophetic struggle of this time, he would have been the hero and Jeremiah would have been the goat. Um, yeah. Well, if the winners wrote the history, why did they write it so badly so many times? Skeptic X breezes right by that it's not a matter of "challenging" documents (that are the invention of his own paranoid begged questions) surviving, but of the surviving documents not having the ability, if he is right, to have been winners in the first place. If this Paranoid Priestly Plot was for real (did they also blow up the World Trade Center?), Skeptic X wants to hypothesize that they were just smart enough to win out but just stupid enough to not get their documentation straight. He'll repeat this argument another 87,837 times (less than usual), along with the same bit about doing the same with the Qu'ran, etc. that we dealt with in the other article, but like all his stilted arguments, it never improves with age. Skeptic X then offers an oddball section in which he says he agrees that "such language as this is apocalyptic, but apocalyptic doesn't necessarily mean figurative." Amazing! Well, news, Skeptic X: if it IS apocalyptic, then it is a genre of "unreality" and weight goes to interpreting such things figuratively rather than literally. The rule, indeed, is stood on its head -- all is to be interpreted figuratively unless there are compelling reasons to interpret it literally -- and it is not following this rule that has dispensationalists reading tales of black helicopters into Revelation. So Skeptic X has just conceded my very point, and does the same with this example: Daniel 12:1ff is an example of an apocalyptic prophecy, and I'm sure that even [Holding] would agree with that. 1"At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book. 2And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. "This is apocalyptic language," Skeptic X concedes, "but is it necessarily figurative--all of it?" When Skeptic X gets this polite, you know he knows he's in a jam, and he is. Not all, of course, but most, and we need a compelling reason to interpret any part of it literally. Skeptic X thinks he can get out of it by asking me if "this apocalyptic passage not prophesying a general resurrection from the dead". It was -- and we have a compelling reason to think so: The Jewish conception of the totality of the spirit and body as a fundamental unity, which means that any afterlife at all required a body. Hence a rez was the inevitable result a Jew would come to as our fate. But as even Skeptic X admits, this is laced with figurative language -- the use of the term "sleep" for death and "awake" for life. So much for that Skeptic X attempt. It's nothing but Skeptic X arguing errancy to prove errancy...now isn't that a fair assessment? As a matter of course, even liberal Biblical scholars recognize that such rampant stupidity is unlikely, and their usual tack is to say that the mundane parts of Isaiah's Babylon prophecy (for example) were what Isaiah or some other person only wrote, and the apocalyptic imagery was inserted by a later redactor who thought these things would literally happen. Do you think Skeptic X thinks he is smarter and more informed than these scholars? No, and that is why he evades the issue: Notice the word liberal here. That is supposed to mean that if "liberal biblical scholars" agree with [Holding] on this point, then he must be right, but I wonder if he will be willing to apply the same principle to preterism, the issue we are supposed to be debating. If I can find "conservative" biblical scholars, who fervently believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God but also believe that preterism is a false doctrine, will that prove that [Holding]'s position on preterism is wrong? Skeptic X resorts to his usual simple-minded ploy here, but sorry, it's not a matter of "my scholar versus yours" -- it never has been -- but that these intelligent and relevantly-educated people simply don't believe Skeptic X's absurd thesis. Their solution is surgery on the text, or a thesis of development, which is far more reasonable at any rate than Skeptic X's blindfolded surgery on history and common sense. As usual, though, Skeptic X is reluctant to meet actual arguments head on, because that is precisely where the bus runs him over. Caird [114] noted the insanity of such a position by those infected with "pedantic literalism" [Holding] is so forensically ignorant that he can't see that he has nothing here except an assertion that Caird made. Skeptic X is such a hayseed that he thinks he has the right to demand any more from a trained scholar who would send him into oblivion (figuratively) on any relevant subject, and that he doesn't need to provide a countering answer other than blowing smoke from his ego (and we don't care if he finds a scholar of his own, if he can). That's what freethinking arrogance will get you, as he and Stevie Carr learned the hard way here. He wants arguments? The book was Caird's Language and Imagery of the Bible and Skeptic X can find it at any number of libraries who will be glad to loan it to him once he pays those Waldo fines. Caird goes into great detail (but sorry, Skeptic X fans, no pictures you can color) about the Eastern mindset and the language produced in such settings. It is an educating read, and Skeptic X may even find some of it fascinating if the La-Z-Boy gets too uncomfortable. As it is, Skeptic X has the nerve to address Caird on only one issue at all, and it is a point of trivia that he uses to evade the issue at hand: Wiser and better read scholars like Caird note that the language of hyperbole is no different than a passage from Vergil's Fourth Ecologue [sic], which speaks of "summers of snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea" as expected benefits of the imperial rule of Augustus. I wonder if Caird referred to this as the "Fourth Ecologue" rather than the "Fourth Eclogue." Apparently, [Holding] doesn't know what an eclogue is (a short pastoral poem). At any rate, I love it when [Holding] puts his foot into his mouth. Although I am not at all familiar with Roman literature, I do have an academic background in American and British literature and 30 years of experience teaching college literature. My emphasis was on American literature, but I did happen to know enough about British literature to recognize that the quotation that Caird allegedly attributed to Vergil was in fact a quotation from a poem by Alfred Tennyson, a 19th-century British romantic poet. Here is Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, entitled "Pollio," which, as readers will see, contains no reference at all to "summers of snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth, and oarless sea." What an Eclogue is (Skeptic X has plenty of his own typos to worry about, beyond things like that "90% of my website" routine we're still waiting for him to admit to), and how Caird made the attribution, is of absolutely no relevance; Skeptic X admits that "Vergil wrote romantically of an idyllic time when the 'she-goats' would come home with udders swollen with milk, the serpent would die, prosperity would come when an 'untilled' earth would bring forth abundance, and mariners would no more have to 'ply' the sea, since all lands would bring forth alike…" In other words, Vergil used language that was comparable to the figures of speech used in Is. 13 and Matt. 24, and Skeptic X is using the citation issue as a distraction from his lack of ability to deal with the data the contradicts his thesis that the language of Is. 13 and Matt. 24 must be read literally. (In answer to the charge, however: Caird did not attribute the quotation to anyone; his full paragraph notes Is. 11:1-9 and that it has been "rightly compared with Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, the Pollio, which for all its air of enchantment ('summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea'), is an elegant piece of court flattery…" and gives no credit to Tennyson or Vergil for the quote - not that it matters, since the point is the same regardless, and Skeptic X is spreading only paranoia when he tries to spin this out as a case of citing Vergil to impress readers.) (Caird [114] noted the insanity of such a position by those infected with "pedantic literalism") [like Skeptic X] for like most charges of incongruous editing, this still forces us to "reckon with the editor who saw nothing incongruous in bringing them together. The application of surgery to a biblical text is more often than not an admission on the part of the surgeon that he has failed to comprehend it as it stands." Skeptic X again evades by playing dumb: We have no way of knowing exactly what "surgery to a biblical text" that Caird was referring too, because [Holding] is too forensically ignorant to know that a truncated quotation like this really doesn't explain anything except that Caird thinks that some "editors" perform "surgery" on biblical texts. Skeptic X, rather, is too contextually and dimensionally ignorant to "get" that it doesn't matter what text Caird referred to; he is stating a general principle ("a biblical text") about modern scholars who play Veg-o-matic like the liberals who slice Isaiah 13 into shards. Skeptic X seems to be the one having problems reading "fragments" -- just as he missed that little qualifying phrase that made him think I wanted him to pay for 90% of my website. How about some sloppy reading rather than sloppy writing? (As an aside, Skeptic X does no better than he accuses when he says that Caird "believes that the Bible is 'the word of God,'" -- that may or may not be his view -- from his works he appeared ambivalent on the subject, supposing only that the Bible may have contained the Word of God, and not inerrantly -- but Skeptic X offers no quote, no source, but ample hypocrisy!) Need another entertaining side note as a break? This will be fun: In contrast Skeptic X is a low-context hyperliteralist in a logocentric culture, separated by thousands of years. Of course, we are supposed to believe that [Holding], who has all kinds of problems trying to communicate clearly in his native language, is an expert on ancient languages, idioms, and nuances. Since he keeps wagging in his high/low-context nonsense, I will just cut and paste my previous reply to this in the men-with-David debate. My first rebuttal of [Holding]'s high/low-context quibble was made here. Problems communicating? More like Skeptic "pay for 90% of my website" X has problems with basic reading, which is why he has to resort to burning straw men. So if Skeptic X can't read a simple qualifying phrase clearly, how does he expect us to believe he can read the Bible clearly? As for that context "quibble" I flattened Skeptic X on that here -- we're still waiting for an answer, as we also are on this embarrassing gaffe, and this one -- all of which prove that Skeptic X can't even be trusted to do the laundry. We have an example of this which we recently used as part of a tongue-in-cheek Skeptical quiz: Is this one of Caird's examples of the "same sort of language" that is still used "aming [sic]" Eastern people even today? No, of course, it isn't. This is just more of [Holding]'s nonsense in the same vein as his "Hyper the Literalist" phone calls. When [Holding] can't reply to arguments, he resorts to this kind of stuff. When Skeptic X shows his ignorance, he really goes all out, does he not? No, the one about offering to allow a guest to sacrifice your children and burn your house down wasn't one of Caird's examples, actually -- Skeptic X says, "when [Holding] finds an 'Eastern person' who makes such a statement as this, we can then talk about it." He's got one. That example came from the classic work of Abraham Rihbany titled The Syrian Christ [108ff]. Rihbany gave numerous examples of such turns of expression from his native land, and today, Pilch and Malina in the Handbook of Biblical Social Values concur [52] and explicate. They note that in modern Western society, culture is tied to precision; time is a commodity, and dramatic orientation wastes time by not getting to the point. Unlike in the ancient world, when dramatic speech and eloquence were held in high esteem, "Creativity, imagination, and boasting are activities that waste precious time" and "have no place in a society driven by productivity: machines will tolerate no exaggeration, imprecision, or tardiness." That's why Skeptic X the bigot won't believe that people actually talk this way; he's too busy looking at his watch. (Though interestingly, a couple of his own fans who "answered" my quiz for Skeptics did indeed properly understand the phraseology as typical Near Eastern expression.) Those who would care to see an example from modern times of the difficulty in grasping Eastern idioms may find this site interesting. It's the sort of thing that would make the bigot in Skeptic X have a hissy fit, but as far as we are concerned, he can go pave the sea. Now for more Stupid Skeptic Questions. Here we go: 1. When Lot proposed to send his two daughters, who had never "known man," out to the mob in front of his house demanding that the "angels" be sent out so that the men could "know them," what did he mean? Was he offering to let the men have sexual access to his daughters? If not, how do you know? The answer is yes, that's what he was offering. Skeptic X didn't ask an "If so..." question, so we'll wait for that. Questions 2 and 3 are just the same question repeated with Lot's story again and Judges 19, because Skeptic X likes to repeat himself to look impressive. Meanwhile here's another "d'oh" question from Skeptic X: An important point which Skeptic X slides right over is the observation of Caird that the advice given doesn't make a lot of sense if this is an "end of the world" scenario, but makes perfect sense if it is a matter of a real military and political upheaval. What advice is [Holding] talking about? Is he still ranting about Vergil's Fourth "Ecologue [sic]"? Skeptic X wastes a few sentences complaining about how lost he is, but I suspect he's playing dumb because he has no answer. Let me repeat it in a way we have above: Hence Caird's question -- what's the point of advice like, "And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment," if this is a matter of the world coming to an end? If that's what's happening, where are you fleeing to? This advice, and other advice in the Discourse, only makes sense in the event of a regional political or military upheaval. If the sun is really going dark and the stars are really falling, are you going to keep watching Seinfeld? I doubt if even Skeptic X would stay seated in that comfortable La-Z-Boy if that were the case. Hence -- the language shows yet another signal of being figurative. Next up, I gave examples from Isaiah and Ezekiel of obviously figurative language which suggests by association that the surrounding language is figurative. Skeptic X bawls back with one of his usual canards, noting where I commit an offense against his grammar sense, and says, "someone who has difficulty with his own native language isn't very likely to be the expert in biblical languages that he continually pretends to be." Heck yeah. And someone who thinks I wanted him to pay for 90% of my website and misses qualifying clauses, and keeps reading guilt into Biblical passages contrary to reality...well, you get the picture. Skeptic X's name is Mud just by his own standard. Anywayz, he finally gets 2 the actual argument and beyond complaining that he can't understand what I'm saying, he admits, sure, these have figurative elements, of course, but bawls in with that same canard, "a primary rule of literary interpretation that says that the language of a text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning." And he's got his compelling reasons. Let's list them:
Skeptic X has nothing but excuses of conspiracy, wave-offs, and games of playing dumb as a counter to these. And his "compelling" reasons to take the figures of speech literally?
Skeptic X, then, can take his "strong professional background in literary interpretation" (of modern and recent works of literature, not of ancient Eastern literature), match it up to his ignorance in areas like, oh, Biblical anthropology, and wash his socks in it. Skeptic X tries to salvage some decency out of his embarrassing hyperliteralism by asking snidely, if this was just apocalyptic imagery, then what was the darkness at the crucifixion? It was recorded, Skeptic X, in a narrative format; these oracles were recorded in a poetic format. Oh, come on, [Holding], even you can't be this linguistically ignorant. Are you actually claiming that Matthew 24:29ff is poetry? Are you claiming that Luke's reference to the ascension of Jesus in a cloud [Acts 1:9] was just a poem? Duh ah, no, Skeptic X, I was referring to Is. 13 there, though Matt. 24, being that it alludes to it, does fit in that room as well, and I said zip about Acts 1:9, which is in a narrative genre. Is Is. 13 poetry? Yes, it darned well is. As even Paine knew, these oracles were set to music; they were not just messages on the message pad, but art. And that means we have an immediate responsibility to NOT assume that the language is literal from the get-go. As I said, "That makes it prima facie inarguable that they were intended to be read metaphorically unless it was clear they were meant to be taken literally..." Skeptic X thinks he reached the bonus round and toots: Did [Holding] even notice what he said? Poetry is to be inarguably read metaphorically unless--notice the word unless--it was clear that it is to be taken literally. Well, in the first place, figurative language in poetry isn't necessarily metaphorical. Longfellow's poem "Nature" is an extended simile that contains no metaphorical language in the "commonplace"--a literary term that [Holding] won't understand. Not until the "application"--another term that he won't understand--is metaphorical language used. The language in the commonplace part of the poem is very literal. Kudos! Now Skeptic X can tell us how "commonplace" (I know the terms well enough, thank you, Mr. "B Greek is the Product of Someone Who Makes a Mistake a First Year Greek Student Would Not") it was for the sun to darken, the moon to blow out, and the stars to fall, and the earth to shake, especially at the convenient time of a battle. Not that this applies anyway. Skeptic X is pathetically ignorant if he thinks he can just blow over the rules of modern, Western interpretation and staple them to ancient Middle Eastern poetry. Skeptic X whines some more that we gave "no" evidence for the imagery theory, but we have indeed given seven lines of evidence which Skeptic X only blows smoke and flashes mirrors at; we have (despite Skeptic X's burdened memory and inability to keep track of things) explained what the literal fulfilling of the oracles would be. Skeptic X is playing a game of taking the matter of figurative only as far as he wants -- it's literal just to the level he wants it to be -- and hence assumes errancy to prove errancy. And if his canard of the same nature is worth attention, so is mine. When Skeptic X wakes up from his delusional fantasy of thinking canards like these constitute worthwhile points, we can try again. Now we reach where Skeptic X backs into his diversion on 2 Peter. Skeptic X knows that he's been caught wagging in an irrelevancy to distract the reader from his inability to answer the article as a whole, and he tries to excuse it first with a "you did it too" on Jer. 7:22 (though showing Skeptic X's pedantic literalism in action is of relevance to his understanding of figurative language in Matthew, whereas 2 Peter on the parousia is not relevant at all to the understanding of the Olivet Discourse), and second by barking that I "quoted from various biblical texts" outside of the discourse (though I did not devote half of my article to any one of these other texts as Skeptic X did). Also interestingly, Skeptic X takes advantage of his constitutional right to talk out of both sides of his mouth as usual, on the one hand saying I cited rather than quoted verses at times because I "probably know that if [I] quoted them some of [my] readers would likely notice that they don't support what [I] was trying to prove by them," and then in the next sentence backing his tricycle over a bed of nails and admitting, "I'm not at all complaining about his references to these passages, because if he thought that citing them was necessary to support his case, he had the right to refer to them. I, in fact, understand what he is doing, because I did the same thing when I was a preacher." And then he admits: "I would string together a long list of citations and quotations in my articles and sermons to create the effect I wanted, i. e. pulpit warmers gaping in awe at Brother [Skeptic X] for using so many scriptures." So in other words, Skeptic X merely assumes his own past dishonest stupidity on others, after the manner of his usual egotism and provincialism. As we have shown already, however, his accusation from his own past is baseless slander in context. Third up, where I note that Skeptic X wasted extensive space on Peter he didn't spend on addressing Olivet, he whines yet again about having limited space in TSR, which only makes his excuses for not addressing more of the original article even more transparent. It remains that he has been caught wagging in (despite his hypocritical complaints) a major distraction for lack of ability to answer the points at hand, and that he tries to stretch the subject like Silly Putty to make it "relevant" shows the levels of manipulation to which Skeptic X the Showman descends to keep himself from being slathered with mustard and eaten raw. It's the same old manipulation game of bringing in as many subjects as possible in order to make the debate as cumbersome as possible and engage as many distractions as possible in order to cause readers to be lost in the shuffle and fail to notice that he is running around stark naked. Too bad for Skeptic X, we see through his little games. We caught Skeptic X doing the same on the date and authorship of 2 Peter, and as before, he stretches the Silly Putty to its limits. He says it is related because if 2 Peter is late, preterism is doomed. No, actually, if 2 Peter is late, it is at best evidence (within his own paradigm) that one later writer didn't hold a preterist view. Beyond this Skeptic X waves off responding to Glenn Miller's article with the usual blatter from his quarter when he can't actually get to the tacks of arguments, in the main, repeating for the 65,8309,657th time his canards above abusing the CCBE quote that he still hasn't figured out the meaning of, but also alluding to bias. In imitation of his usual ignorance of thinking it is just a case of "my scholar vs. yours" he cites (very briefly!) a few folks who date 2 Peter late, including the eminent Bruce Metzger. Of course in Skeptic X's simplemindedness, he thinks as noted above that he doesn't have to actually critically compare arguments and bring them against each other. Skeptic X hasn't the guts, or the fortitude, or the education to take on such matters directly, which is why he pretends it is merely a matter of "citing vs citing" -- or else is pretending that that is all it is. Is it? No. Miller's article provides direct answers to each of the arguments Skeptic X uncritically pulls from his sources. If he has more guts than he has showmanship, let him address them directly rather than throwing broken pebbles. Skeptic X says he can "guarantee" that he "can match Miller scholar for scholar". No, he can't -- and he is showing his spinelessness and making excuses when he demands that we quote Miller's material. He says, if it's a worth it, quote it. Fine. We'll give Skeptic X another lesson in playing diversionary games. Question...are 1st and 2nd Peter NOT by Peter, but by someone using his name?I got his question: I was discussing 2Peter with a skeptical friend, reads alot of the Higher
Criticism stuff...He/She writes: (1) The first, most BASIC pointer that NEITHER 1 or 2 Pet are from the the
Palestinian Jew Cephas is the fact that they were originally composed in
Greek...which no Galilean fisherman could do. A fisherman was at the bottom of
the social ladder, and those with even higher social status couldn't read or
write. The Greek of the epistles is of highly stylized form (more so than the
Johannine writings), and reflects authorship of an educated gentile, and not a
Jew. Your friend here is working on too little and too old data... "And that of the apostles, embracing the ministry of Paul, ends with Nero. It was later, in the times of Adrian the king, that those who invented the heresies arose; and they extended to the age of Antoninus the eider, as, for instance, Basilides, though he claims (as they boast) for his master, Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7.17) "This also the presbyter said: Mark having become the interpreter of
Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered
of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed
him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to
the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of
the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some
things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any
of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely." These
things are related 16 by Papias concerning Mark. 16But concerning Matthew he
writes as follows: "So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language,
and every one interpreted them as he was able." And the same writer uses
testimonies from the first Epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise.
(Eusebius HE 3.39.15) "Lower Galilee was a center for trade with the Mediterranean, the Sea of Galilee and the Decapolis regions. ..Besides being connected by a number of waterways, there was a road system that utilized a series of valleys to interconnect the Galilean region, tying together such important cities as Sepphoris and Tiberias, as well as trying the area to its surrounding regions. As a result, Galilee was a center for import and export as well as general trade, resulting in a genuinely cosmopolitan flavor...It [Capernaum] was a fishing village, with fishing apparently constituting its major source of economic gain. Nearby was Tiberias, a city built by Herod Antipas, where there was a population that was probably even more bilingual than Jerusalem...Many of his [Jesus'] disciples were fishermen who worked on the Sea of Galilee, including Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. They almost assuredly would have need to conduct in Greek much of their business of selling fish. It is also worth nothing that, of his disciples, Andrew and Philip had purely Greek names...This information helps to make sense of the scene in John's Gospel at 12:20-22, where Greeks asked of Philip, who was from Bethsaida (in Gaulanitis, across from Galilee), to see Jesus. He immediately went to Andrew, who was also reportedly from Bethsaida (John 1:44). [SHJ:135-136] "Meyers and Strange have made a persuasive case for the linguistic
penetration of Greek into Galilee in the Greco-Roman period; they suggest that
there is evidence for its use there before the coming of Alexander the Great and
that ostracon inscriptions found at sites in the region, while predominantly in
Aramiaic, are also biligual and in Greek only. From the third century B.C.E.
, public inscriptions were regularly in Greek...Major inscriptions of
import for Jews in this period were in Greek, from Caesar's decree in the
Galilee regarding the sanctity of tombs to the public notice forbidding
admission of the allogenai into various sections of the Jerusalem
Temple...This means that for Jesus to have conversed with inhabitants of cities
in the Galilee, and especially of cities of the Decapolis and the Phoenician
regions, he would have had to have known Greek, certainly at the
conversational level. The modes and forms of communication deriving from the
Greek tradition would not have had to be acquired by Greek editors or writers
of a later generation, as the form-critical school assumes....Nevertheless,
the dominant medium of communication in the Jesus tradition seems to have
been Greek." [Kee, "Early Christianity in the Galilee: Reassessing the
Evidence from the Gospels" in GLA:20f] (2) The fact that the OT references made in 1Pet are to the Greek
Septuagint, and NOT the Hebraic Massoretic texts makes it obvious that this is
not from a Judean. Cephas would not be familiar with these writings...certainly
not enough to be able to quote from them. There are major problems in this as well: c. Cephas is familiar enough with the "Old Testament" (probably in three
languages--Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic) to both quote and allude to it. And, by this
late time in his preaching ministry these passages would likely HAVE been
committed to memory (and the allusions would have been part of standard Jewish
heritage). But even if not, the content would certainly have been, and it would
have been too simple for him to get his helper(s) to flesh out the quotes if
desired. His preaching in Acts actually reflects both LXX Greek and non-LXX
Greek elements (BEAP:86-88] It is interesting to note here, first of all, that since the acceptance of
First Peter was unanimous in the early Church, then the arguments in #1 and #2
would not have been "simple common sense" now, would they? The church clearly
knew that Peter was a Galilean fisherman before meeting Jesus, and that his
epistles were written in Greek, but that didn't constitute a problem for them...
But Second Peter is clearly a different story... d. But disputes about the book (implying that the majority ACCEPTED
it) are noted by Eusebius: "And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, 'against which the gates
of hell shall not prevail,' has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a
second, but this is disputed. (HE 6.25.8)
(4) 1Pet 1:1 addresses churches in Asia Minor. What persecution is the
author speaking of? There was no persecution in that area at the time that
Cephas was still alive. The ONLY persecution of that period was in Rome, under
Nero (even the author of Acts says that there was no persecution of xtians BY
pagans in the area at the time). These persecutions can only have happened at
the very END of the first cent., almost 30 yrs AFTER (as tradition holds) that
Peter died, when persecution was announced on an Empirical [sic!]
scale! Your friend here has made the simple error of over-exegeting. In this case,
he or she has decided that the references in First Peter apply to an "official
persecution"--there is simply inadequate warrant for this. Even the non-conservative article in ABD (rejecting Petrine authorship) admits that this argument has been rejected by scholarship: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Was Yahweh speaking literally in those other passages? Sure, but that's a command in a narrative setting, not a prophetic/poetic oracle. Maybe Skeptic X was absent the day they did genre study in Bam Bam Bible College. I also doubt that the Hebrews killed all the breathing insects and rodents in the cities. BTW, Deut. 22:16 says, "And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her..." So much for Mr. Perfecto's perfect day. Now how can we trust him ever again?