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And now for another fun game of Prostituting the Scholar. So far Skeptic X has appealed to two scholars (in spite of, "Oh my G--! If so and so said that, it must be true!") and both times ended up only supporting or elucidating upon our case. Now it's time for Strike 3. Veering outside the Land Promise debate again, after complaining of a lack of quote from Barr on 'olam (why do that when all you'll say is, "Oh my G--! If Barr says it, it must be true!"), Skeptic X offers this burp, which we will relate in loving detail:

Even if [Holding] had quoted Barr, we would have to wonder if he was quoting him out of context and misrepresenting Barr's position. Those who have followed all of my exchanges with [Holding] will remember when he quoted a book by Richard L. Rohrbaugh in the Abiathar debate to try to prove that feelings of guilt didn't exist in biblical times. John Kesler, a member of the Errancy list, considered this claim as ridiculous as I did, so he wrote to Rohrbaugh to ask if [Holding] had correctly applied the quotation from his book. Kesler's inquiry quoted the statement from Rohrbaugh's book Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, which [Holding] had quoted as proof that feelings of guilt didn't exist in biblical times.

Let's do the Skeptic X game and interrupt here. Skeptic X reproduces only part of the letter Rohrbaugh sent Kesler, and I want readers to note that we will see that Rohrbaugh will actually indicate that Skeptic X's position was completely wrong about David "feeling" guilty. We will then see Skeptic X desperately trying to apply spin to attempt to salvage some victory out of this crushing defeat he is trying to dodge.

"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" [63].

On August 22, 2002, Rohrbaugh sent this reply by e-mail.

I should note here as well that Skeptic X does not indicate how much of my material, if any, Kesler quoted to Rohrbaugh. Here is what Rohrbaugh said:

I know nothing about the web site, though I (and many other scholars) am often uneasy about the use of our work on the web. To be precise it is not quite accurate to say that guilt is a "modern" invention. Both guilt and shame exist in most societies though one response or the other usually dominates. Collectivist societies (dyadic view of personality) are ALL shame societies. Thus All known agrarian societies have been honor-shame societies and it is only individualistic societies in which guilt comes to the fore. The issue is therefore not the modern versus the ancient, but the collectivist versus the individualistic. Since industrialized societies allow for economic, political, and especially psychological individualism, it is industrialized societies that are guilt cultures. It is because the ancient Mediterranean world was a highly collectivistic, agrarian society that guilt was virtually unknown. Reading it into ANY biblical text is a serious mistake.

This is directly quoted from Rohrbaugh, and the best Skeptic X can wrest from this is a matter of imprecision rather than error. I said guilt (as a feeling) was a modern invention. Rohrbaugh says this is not quite accurate in terms of precision, but his words support my point nevertheless. Rohrbaugh says again that "all known agrarian societies" have been honor-shame, and it is individualistic, rather than collectivist societies, in which guilt comes to the fore. Note well that I did not speak in terms of "modern = guilt, ancient = no guilt" as though all modern societies were guilt-feelers. What I said, and no more, was that guilt was a modern invention. The chain is simple and is only elucidated by Rohrbaugh: Ancient societies were all agraian/collectivist; individualist/industrialized societies only emerged in modern times; hence "guilt" itself is a modern manifestation. I also want readers to note very closely Rohrbaugh's last two sentences: "It is because the ancient Mediterranean world was a highly collectivistic, agrarian society that guilt was virtually unknown. Reading it into ANY biblical text is a serious mistake." In other words, Skeptic X's "guilty David" reading was a serious mistake, and Skeptic X compounded this "serious mistake" by reading guilt into even MORE Biblical texts in an attempt to justify his position. The claim which Skeptic X and Kesler considered "ridiculous" received nothing but confirmation from Rohrbaugh.

Pinned to the mat by his own research, Skeptic X tries to spin out the best result he can to keep the sun shining on his posterior:

Rohrbaugh went on to say that he thought loyalty rather than guilt was what motivated David to offer his protection to Abiathar, but his statements above are clear in saying that guilt is not a modern invention that was unknown in biblical times. He obviously thinks that feelings of guilt were rare in biblical times, but he doesn't fanatically claim that this emotion didn't exist at all.

Let's stress that first sentence again, because it is Rohrbaugh telling Skeptic X that he was dead wrong about guilt being behind David's actions. So Skeptic X is reduced to extensive damage control, trying to make it out that I "misrepresented" and "distorted" what Rohrbaugh had to say in the book, though what it amounts to is Rohrbaugh expressing and agreeing with 99 out of 100% of what I had to offer, only adding precision and elucidation on one point and some qualifying language ("virtually unknown") in the letter that was not in the book's text (where it said plainly, "did not exist" -- an understandable variation for a popular, accessible work, such as the book, or my own writing) while giving Skeptic X a slapdown that reverberates all the way to Arundi Burundi. I can accept the qualification in good graces; it does not in any way negate my argument, and indeed I find it thoroughly agreeable. But what is left sends Skeptic X to the showers on this one. Rohrbaugh shot him down without a parachute at 30,000 feet.

We close with this observation. This issue was brought up as a peripheral in the Abiathar debate. I found it odd that Skeptic X, contrary to his usual practice, issued a "lightning" response to my upload on the 24th, one which clearly showed he had not read my response well, if at all (for more than one reason, which I will keep under my hat like a good debator). Given the date of Rohrbaugh's response, and Skeptic X's burial of this in the Land Promise debate, could the real reason he was in such a hurry to end the Abiathar date actually be found here?

And now an update. One of Skeptic X's disciples, the infamous Stevie Carr ("Ancient people never would think to build a dam!"), put some of that good old-fashioned freethinking arrogance to work, the same sort that prompted some goof a few years back to respond to historians who called G. A. Wells' work nonsense by asking whether the historians had actually read what Wells had to say. Stevie took it upon himself to drop Rohrbaugh a line, though he first decided to do a passel more damage to his credibility in everyone's eyes but his own by issuing three messages on 9/24, and one on 9/26, in which he humphed his way through Malina and Rohrbaugh using the Skeptic X method ("Scholars? We don't need no stinkin' scholars!"). I'm not certain of the order of the three 9/24 messages, but it won't matter. He also added a little burp on 10/7 in response to this, and another on 10/22, in which he ignored most of what we said. Here's how Stevie puts it in one from the 24th:

Matthew 27:3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders.

But [Holding] says :-

'Yes, Farrell, 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.

Oh, darn. I may as well just throw away Malina and Rohrbaugh and that decades of research in anthropology that's behind them, huh! I'll give you a hint, Stevie, as to the problem with this: You're quoting the NIV. Mystified? Wait a minute. Let's let you finish blowing your nose:

[Holding] claims guilt is a modern invention.

http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1988/v45-1-bookreview16.htm

is a review of David Augsburger's book - a book recommended to me by Professor Malina, the very person [Holding] is misrepresenting.

Augsburger writes 'There are no "anxiety cultures," "shame cultures," or "guilt cultures" per se, since all three controls are found in every culture and, as far as individual development is concerned, anxiety, shame, and guilt emerge sequentially. This pattern is universal.'

[Holding] writes 'Yes, Farrell, 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.'

[Holding] , of course, lies through his teeth.

http://www.tektonics.org/tillstill7-5.html

'Note well that I did not speak in terms of "modern = guilt, ancient = no guilt" as though all modern societies were guilt-feelers. What I said, and no more, was that guilt was a modern invention.'

Malina and Augsburger do not share [Holding]'s bizarre views that people in Biblical times had no feelings of guilt. Perhaps [Holding] is projecting his own inability to feel this emotion :-) Or perhaps he is just appallingly stupid.

Perhaps little Stevie doesn't know how to put 2 and 2 together without his fingers. How what is above works out to a "lie" he doesn't explain, but as for Malina, he does share my view here -- he did after all work with Rohrbaugh on the very same book I cited -- and as for Ausberger, little Stevie apparently doesn't notice that Augsberger wrote a book about the modern world to assist modern pastors in their counseling efforts in different cultures today. He wasn't saying zip about ancient cultures in this context. Oops. What Dr. Malina failed to recognize is that given who he was talking to, he should have actually recommended The Children's Pop-Up Book of Cultural Anthropology rather than Ausberger.

Finally on the 24th Stevie posted this burp:

'News flash: There is no way David took on Abby out of guilt, because guilt is a modern invention. Now while you skeptics out there are trying to wipe the baccy off your juice harp, here's a little blurb from Malina and Rohrbaugh's Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels :Since the introspective, guilt-oriented outlook of industrialized societies did not exist [in NT times], it is unlikely that forgiveness meant psychological healing.'

Psalm 38:4 is interesting 'My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.'

So David was overwhelmed with feelings which did not exist.

Proverbs 28:17 'A man tormented by the guilt of murder will be a fugitive till death; let no one support him.'

Ha ha! That little Stevie. Just pick up an NIV and you're an expert, huh! Yes, that's the very problem, as we said, but let's deliver the bone cruncher in closing. Stevie thought to pester Rohrbaugh with a "why is the sky blue" letter of his own about these verses, and though you can bet Skeptic X's sweet bippy he didn't send Rohrbaugh back this reply, he sure felt safe posting it on Skeptic X's site where the Skeptic X-zombies could see it:

I emailed Professor Rohrbaugh about Biblical expressions of guilt,such as in Psalm 38:4 and Proverbs 28:17. He replied

No, these texts do not indicate that ancient people could be overcome by guilt. They indicate that people could be overcome by shame. Understanding the difference between guilt and shame is crucial here. Guilt is an internal reaction to a violation of one's own conscience. It depends on the existence of an individual conscience - something Middle Easterners do not have.

Shame is an internalization of the moral judgment that comes from outside, from the group. In shame cultures it is the group that has the conscience, not the individual. Thus when a group accuses one of violating its standards, deep shame is the result. That is what we read about in the Bible. See 1 Cor. 4:4.

To understand this more fully, please read the books on the Gospels that Bruce Malina and I have co-authored. Even more important are the many scholarly journal articles we have published. Internet quotes devoid of serious scholarly background are not the way to understand this.'

You'd think Stevie would take this advice to heart and read the books like I have, but no, that good old freethinking know-how takes over:

So Professor Rohrbaugh appears to think Middle Easterners have no individual conscience and cites 1 Cor. 4:4.

In 1 Corinthians 4:4, Paul writes 'My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.'

I would have thought Paul was explaining how people are sinful, even though they think that they are not and have clear consciences. Paul is merely saying that it is God who is the final judge of guilt, not humans. Paul is hardly denying that humans can feel guilty. Indeed, he seems to be saying that other people can have guilty consciences, but that he does not feel guilty about what others have accused him of. His judge is God.

Sadly, Professor Rohrbaugh never explained why this interpretation is wrong. I doubt he ever will or can.

Hear that, now! Stevie sure as bippy won't go back and tell Rohrbaugh he never will or can explain it, now will he? You can also bet he won't tell Rohrbaugh that he's teaching "stupidity" when he and his colleagues say the conscience was not from the individual and guilt wasn't the haul for the day. But he ain't done insulting the man behind his back yet:

Nor did the Professor explain the texts I gave or why 1 Corinthians 4 is a denial by Paul that people have consciences or a claim by Paul that he was feeling shame.

I wonder what Professor Rohrbaugh makes of passages such as '1 Samuel 24:5 Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe.'

'1 Samuel 25:31 my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself.

Romans 2:15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

And such is the scholarship [Holding] claims Skeptic X should bow down to , as an unchallengable authority.

And such is the profound depths of idiocy that Skeptics with freethinking know-how descend to being unaware of their incompetence. What would Rohrbaugh make of those passages? First, Stevie, if he was feeling indulgent he MIGHT ask you, "What's the Greek or Hebrew word for 'conscience' or 'guilt' in these passages?" Uh? What? In almost all cases, there isn't one. The one exception is the last one, Rom. 2:15, where the word is suneidesis, and that merely means one's moral perception -- not "conscience" in the modern sense of something internal that instigates guilt (But that -- get this, Stevie! -- does give moral perception, which is not the same thing, and read carefully: the "conscience" isn't even the accuser here, which is what it needs to be to make your anachronistic case!). As Malina and Neyrey say in their own book, Portraits of Paul [187], the "conscience" in Paul's collectivist society was behavioral controls that laid outside the person. An ancient would regard as nonsense the modern comment, "Let your conscience be your guide!" (Not surprisingly, Stevie's only answer to this is the standard, "Gosh, it's in all the translations, and even Josephus, as 'conscience', so it must be right [and must mean the same thing, since all these translators from the Western world must surely have also been up to date on social anthropology in the ancient world, contrary to these guys]." And BTW, Stevie, in John 8:9 "their own" is not in the original text. In other words, it's another Westernizing anachronism.)

What's actually happening here is that the NIV, true to the modern American projection of our attitudes on the rest of the world and history, is being ethnocentric and anachronistic by putting the modern concepts of "guilt" and "conscience" into these passages. The KJV commits a similar error (or we gain a similar misunderstanding) from suneidesis being rendered "conscience". Malina and Rohrbaugh's coterie -- the Context Group -- have been filling in the missing links in Western Biblical scholarship with 20 and more years of research supported by over half a century of ethnographical and social studies. Their works have appeared in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals and books, while Stevie just bought his first coloring book and thinks that it's sufficient to burp back, "[Holding] merely states that the Context Group have written lots of things agreeing with [him], so must be right." Oh? No words for that half a century of ethnographical and social studies? Not a peep about Malina and Rohrbaugh's lifetime dedication to this work? Too busy with your crayons, Stevie? Such is the "scholarship" we are to bow down to: A freethinking Skeptic who thinks he can just pop open an NIV and refute a lifetime of study in social anthropology! And Skeptic X's band of monkeys wonder why they don't get any respect from me? They don't deserve any. What they deserve is an elevator, straight down to the bottom.

And more: Stevie just still cant seem to resist putting eight pairs of his feet in his mouth on a variety of subjects. Apparently we got under Stevie's epidermis more than a little, as he posted 6 more messages as of this typing (read by as many as, gosh darn, look at that, 45 people as of the date of this typing -- that means 1/3 of Skeptic X's fans have checked in, or maybe 1/10 of them 3 times each) and has these bits of tortured prose to insert involving a few episodes of provinicialism joined with the traditional crime of Quoting Out of Context. Let's begin, shall we?

http://www.tektonics.org/tillstill7-5.html is where [Holding] tells the world what he has found out about Greek words that my source - 'The New International Version of the Bible' missed, despite the many conservative Christian scholars who worked on the translation.

Hum, how shall I put this? Stevie, I don't care if the NIV translators are conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Ross Perot supporters, Free Soil Party; who cares. They're wrong on this subject and it is primitive, voodoo simple-mindedness to act as though I or anyone is beholden by some ethereal force to toe the line with general ideological companions on every point. If that's the case, I want to know why Stevie hasn't married Acharya S, since they are both Skeptics. The NIV translators aren't/weren't experts in social anthropology; the Context Group members are, and they have been saying all along that Western Biblical scholarship as a whole (conservative, liberal, whatever) has been guilty of a precocious and widespread anachronism. In this case, they have imposed the notion of individual, internal conscience and guilt on texts where they don't belong. If Stevie's got a problem with that, he needs to refute it with real research proving that their anthropological model is wrong. Stevie can't do it, and won't do it, and folks, Stevie is still too gutless, we can guarantee, to write Rohrbaugh, Malina, or whoever, and tell them they're wrong (pffft!). The bottom line is, only an arrogant freethinker supposes he can pop a pill to refute decades of depth research. Stevie has no actual answers to this other than committing the same gross anachronisms. (I'll have a link at the end where Stevie can learn more, or deny more, more likely.)

http://exposed.faithweb.com/blunder.html is a most interesting article showing that , although [Holding] considers himself a greater scholar in Greek than the people who translated the NIV, he actually cannot even count how many times a Greek word appears in a sentence.

(Note to Skeptic X fans: Lately Stevie accuses me of editing out the link above. No, I didn't -- I copied and pasted directly from what Stevie wrote, and the brackets around it made it "disappear" from the browser text; it was still in the HTML. Same with the note on tillstill7-5 just above. I have now removed the brackets around both. Nice try at an accusation, Stevie, but it won't wash. Stevie spends the rest of his message on 10/22 trying to explain -- over several paragraphs -- why the mistake Skeptic X made described in the link below really isn't a mistake. That's time he didn't spend writing to Malina and Rohrbaugh telling them how ignorant they were. )

"I" consider myself a greater scholar? No -- the Context Group is composed of greater scholars of social anthropology than the scholars who translated for the NIV. As usual, Stevie connects the dots on a picture of a cat and ends up with a depiction of the QE2. As for beating that software issue into the ground, which is what Skeptics like Stevie and the frustrated monkey in the link do when they have no ability to answer any actual arguments we offer, this is a most interesting article showing that Skeptic X has much the same problems being perfect and we now have an item here showing Skeptic X plumbing even greater depths of incompetence in Biblical scholarship -- as does Stevie, as we'll see below. Oh, and I can count the number of times the word appeared in the software -- not "in a sentence"; and yes, it is a real Greek text, just not a well-organized one; and yes, I did "cope with" the data in the footnote (psst -- see here -- it, and the text near it, actually agrees with me). Not the same thing. My but Stevie is looking for ways to make himself feel better and avoid the issues.

Next up, Stevie does the tactical shebang of "I'm feeling a loss of self-esteem, so let's change the subject":

In [Holding]'s http://www.tektonics.org/tillstill7.html he introduces more 'scholarship', namely David Rohl's 'pharoahs and kings'

http://www.bga.nl/en/discussion/engbaboe.html just destroys [Holding]'s supposed scholar.

Um, yeah. http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engirrefutable.html just destroys http://www.bga.nl/en/discussion/engbaboe.html. Rohl's thesis (and note the arrogance of Stevie in denying Rohl the title "scholar" -- Rohl spent more time studying Egyptology than Stevie has spent eating chips and burping in his La-Z-Boy) is far from worked out in all the details, but there's that freethinking arrogance at work again; Stevie sure don't have the ability to critically sift the arguments. All he can do is find something where someone sticks out their tongue, and as far as he's concerned, case closed and no response possible. And moreso:

[Holding] is avoiding the fallacy of argumenty [sic] by authority by committing the fallacy of argument by non-authority.

Um, yep, whatever the blecko that means. Stevie doesn't know any more than what he reads in his Encarta encyclopedia and what he can dribble out on the Web, so just affix that label of spermologos on his forehead, send him an Rx for coherent thinking and expression, and we'll move on:

[Holding] is still producing bizaar [sic] flights of fancy in his effort to show that ancient peoples had no conscience and never felt guilt, even though the Bible says they did. After all, if Skeptic X (a sceptic) says ancient people sometimes did feel guilt, then [Holding] is forced to disagree or else admit that sometimes sceptics are right about something, and [Holding] detests sceptics.

Oh yeah! If Skeptic X says the Bible sez the sky is blue, I gotta disagree. Now get it right: the thesis is, these ancient people had consciences/senses of right or wrong that were exterior per their group-orientation -- not, "had no conscience/sense of right or wrong" -- did not harbor guilt, but shame -- which is what the Context Group offers, not me -- and the modern Bible translations are anachronizing. Kapish? Got the sock on the right foot, Stevie? I noted:

'And such is the profound depths of idiocy that Skeptics with freethinking know-how descend to being unaware of their incompetence. What would Rohrbaugh make of those passages? First, Stevie, if he was feeling indulgent he MIGHT ask you, "What's the Greek or Hebrew word for 'conscience' or 'guilt' in these passages?" Uh? What? In almost all cases, there isn't one. The one exception is the last one, Rom. 2:15, where the word is suneidesis, and that merely means one's moral perception -- not "conscience" in the modern sense of something internal that instigates guilt. As Malina and Neyrey say in their own book, Portraits of Paul [187], the "conscience" in Paul's collectivist society was behavioral controls that laid outside the person. An ancient would regard as nonsense the modern comment, "Let your conscience be your guide!"'

Stevie barks, "So if I understand [Holding] correctly, a claim that it is nonsense to let conscience be your guide is a denial that people have a conscience [sic]. This is [Holding]-logic! Bizarr!" Yeah, "bizarr" without the E at the end and spelled differently than last time. Don't let Skeptic X see that, he's say everything Stevie writes is untrustworthy if he catches that kind of spelling poof. We advise Stevie to read it again and look up any hard words: People had "conscience" as an external -- not an internal. The outside controlled, not the inside. It's not "Holding-logic" it's "Context Group Scholarship." Stevie just doesn't get this, thus:

Would [Holding] feel no guilty conscience about driving his car at 100 miles an hour, drunk, down the wrong way of a one way street? Of course not!

As one raised in a guilt-oriented society, obviously not. One raised in a shame-oriented, collectivist society would "feel" no such thing at all. Comparing one of us to one of them, and pretending that the one we don't personally experience is ridiculous by example, isn't an actual answer, and Stevie has none, other than trying to smear Malina and Neyrey (and you can bet he won't write Neyrey and tell him he's wrong, either) and missing so bad his conscience should blow up on him and spread itty-bitty Stevie bits all over the M5. Here's the rub, and it runs out from some nice, colorful charts in this link at the end which will remind Stevie of his Crayola set: In this guilt-oriented society, if Stevie really drives like this, he is expected to feel guilty whether the police stop him or not. In a shame culture, if the police miss him, he feels nothing; if he is caught, he is guilty (not "feeling guilt" -- rather, culpable) and is shamed (not "feeling guilty"); if he actually didn't drive that way, but people nevertheless believe he did, he is still shamed and dishonored. Either way, at the time of David, the guilt-orientation simply wasn't there to make David "feel guilty" as Skeptic X supposed and as Rohrbaugh soundly corrected him on. Now, then:

People would regard it as nonsense to be told that they should let their conscience guide them when driving! There are traffic laws to be learned, speed restrictions to be followed, alcohol laws, age laws etc etc. No driving instructor ever tells his pupils to obey their conscience when deciding what speed to drive at. That would be nonsense.

Hey, Stevie, you're the one who brought up the "driving" idea in the first place, not me. Not that this has any relevance to begin with. It's a jumbled mess, deserving of nothing but a "D'oh" attached from Stevie's mouth, and excuse me, but isn't individual conscience of citizens and lawmakers they elect behind those traffic laws to begin with? What a minimalist analysis. And speaking of d'oh, here's a fractured analogy we'd like to see Stevie plop in Malina, Neyrey, or Rohrbaugh's lap so he can tell them just how right he is:

These are behavioural controls that lay quite outside [Holding]'s control, and [Holding]-logic is clear that behavioural controls mean no conscience.

Outside my control? Hardly. I can move to elect an official who promotes unsafe driving (if I can find one) or is apathetic to prosecuting such things. Or I can ignore the laws based on my individual lack of conscience. Get it: The point is that the external controls are the conscience. "So [Holding] is forced, by [Holding]-logic, to deny that he would have a guilty conscience about driving under the influence of cannabis." In the society under discussion, that is absolutely right -- no guilty conscience, but shame, and then only if caught. Deal with it. "Such is the absurdity of apologist logic"? Such is the manifest arrogance and ignorance of Skeptics trying to deal with ideas beyond their comprehension. They inevitably resort to slander and idiocy of this depth, and more:

[Holding] writes in http://www.tektonics.org/porpaulrvw.html 'Even in modern times most of the world still thinks as the people in the Bible did.' This is a review of the very book mentioned in the same article where [Holding] chides me for relying on a book recommendation of one of the scholars [Holding] worships.

Duh huh, Stevie, you weren't chided for "relying on a book recommendation" you were chided and blasted for misapplying the book that was recommended to you. As so, which you quote and don't, uh huh, "get":

In this article, [Holding] writes '...he does share my view here -- he did after all work with Rohrbaugh on the very same book I cited -- and as for Ausberger, little Stevie apparently doesn't notice that Augsberger wrote a book about the modern world to assist modern pastors in their counseling efforts in different cultures today. He wasn't saying zip about ancient cultures in this context.'

And Stevie burps back:

So [Holding] chides me for using Ausberger (as recommended by Malina), because Ausberger is talking about the modern world, rather than the people in the Bible, while [Holding] also insists that most of the modern world sill thinks as the people in the Bible did!

Uh, yeah, what of it? The modern world is a synthesis of cultures influencing each other -- hence it would be out of whack, as Ausberger says, to speak strictly of uniformity in a culture; moreover, guilt develops out of shame, and shame remains around even here, albeit usually in more trivial forms (see article link below, which is not by a Biblical scholar, so Stevie can't hunt that dog). The ancient world was more insulated, more homogenous. There was no industrial society, and Rohrbaugh has already told us that guilt emerges primarily in industrial societies where introspection rules. The bottom line is that Ausberger still says zip about the ancient world, and Stevie's hayseed magic poof of poor analogy is not an answer, and doesn't earn a dime towards Skeptic X's bail on the "guilty David" issue.

And let us not forget another [Holding] lie. [Holding] writes in his article 'One of Skeptic X's disciples, the infamous Stevie Carr ("Ancient people never would think to build a dam!"),' I have never written that statement, despite the blatant attempt by [Holding] to deceive his gullible readers into think I had. The man is a disgusting slime-ball to do such a thing.

Bah hah! No, Stevie never made such a quote with such direct inept fortitude; it's a summary of what he did say, even if he was too dull to know he did. It happened years ago, when Stevie spent a rainy day slopping together whatever he could to devalue McDowell's ETDAV Chapter 11, and had this to say:

Nahum 3:14 tells the Ninevites to prepare for a siege by stockpiling water. McDowell is adamant that rivers flowed thru Nineveh. In this case there would seem to be little need to stockpile water.

Huh huh huh! Little need to stockpile water?!? Make the connection: Stevie is saying, yes, Nineveh's enemies were too stupid to think to dam the river(s). Well, no. I take it back. Maybe Stevie was too "duh, oh" to think of it himself was the problem, and naturally, everyone else is as "duh, oh" as he is as a result. It's an embarrassing case of one-dimensional thinking, and you'd better not have Stevie as a Stratego partner, because if you do, you'll both go home naked as jaybirds. And speaking of nakedness, let's now go to Stevie's attempt to smear Malina and Neyrey, whose sandals he is unworthy to tie, polish, or spit shine:

[Holding] praises 'Bruce Malina and Jerome Neyrey's Portraits of Paul'. On page 6, the authors claim that 'The Acts of Paul' is a description of Paul. Don't they know that this is a second century work of fiction, whose author was disgraced for writing it? Does [Holding] himself not reject the 'Acts of Paul', and such is the scholarship [Holding] relies upon!

Triple d'oh! Not even Homer Simpson was this shockingly estupido. Yeah, see, Stevie never reads a book past when he finds something like this which he in his widespread wisdom thinks is stoopid; after that, based on his broad and generous understanding and very careful reading, the whole book (whatever it says as a whole) is on the Charmin rack. Don't they know it was a 2nd century work of fiction with a disgraced author? Blazes, yeah! They say so on page 127, Stevie. Very bottom. Next page they say it isn't an exact historical remembrance. Just 121 more pages for you to go until enlightenment. Problemo with basic reading comprehension: They never say it is definitely, or to a given extent, an authentic description of Paul, and for what they are trying to explain, it doesn't matter. They're giving an example of how physical appearance was used to indicate personality in the ancient world, and are no more stumping for authenticity than were the scholars they also name who did studies on the passage. Whether it is fiction, non-fiction, or a piece of genuine tradition used in a fictional work, or a mix of two or three, isn't at issue. This is the kind of expert analysis and careful reading we're expected to think has all the goods on scholars with decades of study and experience. It's also the sort you find in coloring books.

Now for another subject change, Stevie decided to vaunt around to another of my articles where I write:

'The comparison to the earth being flat, etc. is not an appropriate analogy: the philosophical arguments for God's existence are intellectually accessible to everyone and at all times; data about the earth and the universe has not been.'

Stevie poobles back:

SO [Holding] thinks peasant people in ancient societies had the education to learn and discuss the Kalaam argument, and the Ontological Argument, and the Argument from Fine-Tuning etc etc and these philosophical arguments were 'intellectually accessible to everyone and at all times'.

Um, yeah: Just like the man in the ghetto has the ability to go out and get an education by some means. i.e., accessible. That doesn't mean they chose to pursue it. Sorry, Stevie, but learning to read and write, and discussing deep issues of life' meaning and purpose, even among those stoopid ancients, was never as inaccessible as boats, telescopes, astrolabes, and all those other nice devices from the Spiegel catalog; nor did this stop them from exchanging ideas orally. Stevie is just being the usual bigot that freethinkers have that tendency to be. Not that he gets the point in the first place: the point was that it was fallacious to compare arguments based on physical, observable data to philosophical ones. What was at issue was an attempt to use both as examples against "argument from popular assent" and Stevie doesn't even point his boat in that direction at all before it gets et by the sea serpent.

This bit of stupidity is the result of his studying the results of 'decades of research in anthropology'?

MY studying? No, this passage didn't even appeal to any studying into anthropology, which isn't related to book or philosophical knowledge, and it has been the Context Group and their forebears who did the decades of research, not me. Stevie is desperately mixing ideas to try to score a much-needed point -- i.e., spermologos. Or maybe they really are jumbled in his head, along with the cricket match scores. How do, Colonel K?

And he has the sheer audacity to complain that the translators of the NIV engaged in 'projection of our attitudes on the rest of the world and history, ... being ethnocentric and anachronistic'!

Yes, the Context Group has the same "audacity" to say this very thing, and Stevie hasn't got an answer beyond "nuh uh" and none which he isn't too chicken to deliver to one of these guys' mailboxes. Can you see it now? Stevie bops into Rohrbaugh's class, shoves him aside, tells his students, "Now lemme tell you the real thing, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about." What bodacious arrogance -- only from your Friendly Neighborhood Freethinker.

Actually, the data about the circumference of the Earth was available to the Greeks long , long ago,at least as long as the philosophical arguments for God's existence.

Yep. And the Greeks, sorry, are not everyone. Finally Stevie has this poof of inapplicability:

I can't resist one piece of [J.P.] (No Link) [Holding]'s writing from his essay I linked to 'I readily provide links when answers are provided elsewhere, but only where there are specific applications.' So [J.P.] (No Link) [Holding] does not link to the essays he criticises, while boasting to his gullible readers how he readily provides links!

Ah, if ripping from context were a crime, this one would earn 70 years on Nutraloaf. Boasting? Get real! Check the entire context:

Gerkin also deserves some small credit in this regard. At least in his response, he provides indications that there is more material elsewhere, as throughout his critique there are links to further information within the Secular Web. That does deserve some small credit, but not much. Tactically this amounts to "hurling the elephant" because unless links are given with specific application -- rather than only listing links to large sets of material and yelling, "Here, this will cover it!" -- it's little more than a confidence job. I readily provide links when answers are provided elsewhere, but only where there are specific applications. Linking to the Secular Web's entire collection of essays on "the argument from evil" is little more than rhetorical excess and tactical laziness.

So what's it boil down to? Stevie is banging his head against the wall again, and as a result has lost his concentration. Keep trying, Stevie -- even a broken clock is right twice a day. Those who wish to educate themselves rather than listen to Stevie may wish to consult this popular summary of the difference between guilt and shame cultures, which Stevie will probably also shamelessly exploit in his miseducation. If he decides whether to deny they exist or not.

And now, we'd like to close this barn door on Skeptic X's and Stevies fingers with some real-world comments from someone who has one foot in our world, and the other foot in a world like the Bible's. Our writer comes from a native Chinese family, and now lives in the United States. China is still a collectivist, honor-shame culture as a whole, and our writer is specially qualified to give us some insight. The floor to our writer:

It is amazing how myopic so-called Skeptics can be when it comes to anything outside of their mental bubbles. [Little Stevie] Carr has somehow found the idea that the majority of the modern world thinks like the people in the Bible, namely as collectivists, quite distasteful. A majority of the world is Chinese. So am I. We emphasize the extended family as a unit, we carry a monstrously vast line of traditions, and we even place surnames in front of personal names to show priorities in terms of identity. Certainly, not all of us follow the ways of our ancestors strictly, but this is due to the influence of, you guessed it, the Western world. But having been raised as in the first generation in this nation, I can say for certain that there are immense cultural differences. In particular, honor and shame rather than innocence and guilt are the issue: we do not think in terms of Jiminy Crickets in our heads, but rather base values on the group as a whole.

At gatherings, for instance, a father may yell at his child for being "diu liên"--throwing one's face away, a lovely image for what it means to be, for lack of a better word, shameful. But even in instances of moral guilt, what happens? The same phrase is applied, whether the child was caught cheating on homework, stealing a bicycle, or throwing food across the room in a restaurant. In some cases, yes, manners are the issue, but for some reason, it is not the fact that the action was in itself wrong that one is condemned for--it is the fact that it brought shame, particularly to the family name. For this reason, perhaps, Asians in general have been advocates of stricter discipline, particularly corporal. Modern psychologists may claim that punishment does no good, but for the honor-driven parents, it certainly brings about the desired behavior modification.

Of course, there are more trivial examples. There is rarely a gathering in which people will not "fight" over the right to pay the bill. Of course, each will attempt to claim it first, (not because it is morally right, or because they really want to, but because it is honorable,) and they will attempt to excuse the others by elaborating on how embarrassing it would be to accept it. Then there is the stereotype of the high grades, the good schools, the countless extracurriculars, at least piano or violin, and so forth. For what purpose? To represent the family name. You will never hear the older generation say, "It's for your own good," whether in regard to an order, or a punishment, or anything, because it simply isn't about us as individuals. And you will most certainly never hear, "Don't you feel bad?" The Chinese are notorious for their stoic attitudes. It is sometimes joked that we as a race don't even have emotions.

There is another silly game often played. One might say something intentionally belittling so as to win reinforcing praise from the other party, whether with regard to how a child never studies or how poorly the food is cooked. This, of course, is a cheap way to win, you guessed it, honor. As a result, the principle of limited good shows up all the time. People do not dispense presents or hospitality out of goodwill, but necessity, because it would be shameful to accept it without returning the favor.

Of course, a known tendency in such a society can be to become completely dishonest. So long as one is not caught, any means are fine. There is fierce competition and pressure, which is why it never surprised me that many of my fellow American- born Chinese peers ended up, in fact, doing this. They had become so obsessed with the outward favor that they took a Machiavellian approach to it all. It never once bothered them that they might be doing the wrong thing. It never once occurred to them to live for themselves. It never occurred to them that there was an internal concept of right and wrong. These are ideas foreign to us.

I was once reprimanded for inappropriate behavior during recess back in elementary school. When the teacher tried to explain how I might hurt the other children, how I should feel bad, and how I should say sorry, much of it did not make any sense, because I knew my parents would scold me for making them look bad. One view was individualistic, emotional, and personal. The other was collectivist, pragmatic, and social. I can understand how the modern understanding of the Christian message came to be this fuzzy idea of accepting Jesus into one's heart, to believe and have a wonderful, soul-lifting experience and freedom from guilt, replete with flowers and singing. On the other hand, I have never been able to identify with this, although I can most certainly say that the collectivist, honor-shame mindset was crucial to making the Chinese church I grew up in look a lot more like the one seen in Acts rather than the dead, formal service churches are popularly made out to be.

Skeptic X must be in a particularly poor frame of mind these days; for it seems he is trying to commit suicide by masochism. Despite being soundly beaten on this subject by multiple authorities, he once again has decided to pull the dead rabbit out of his flattened hat and wave it around in the air; though as expected, all he attracts are flies. The intelligent reader by now (which means, those who don't read X's work) hardly needs be told that X's hayseed attempt to haul up spectre of diversity as an argument ("The flaw in this method is the obvious fact that differences of opinion can be found in any field of 'expertise,' whether it be sociology, psychology, history, law, medicine, or whatever") is a vain mask indicating his own inability to produce authoritative contrary scholarship; in this case, he has no counters at all to the work of Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh (whom he calls "Robert" Rohrbaugh!) on guilt and shame in the ancient world. Let us make this matter simple: There are NO authorities in the field of sociology who disagree concerning the basic matter of honor/shame verses guilt societies. The reason Malina and Rohrbaugh (and all the other authorities) know these things is because even today, 70-75% of the world is still honor-shame oriented. We know how a "guilt society" develops -- because a leisure class develops, which enables time for introspection. That is why the first recorded signals of what we call "guilt" appear in the works of the classic, at-leisure Greek authors (as a linked item above notes). X's asinine appeal that "human nature being human nature would tell us that such emotions did exist in biblical times" reflects little but his own ignorance. No time machine is needed; we have "living laboratories" as well as social models of development, and the texts that tell us that the ancients were honor-oriented. X's laughable argument that Malina and Rohrbaugh "would have to have studied personally every person who lived in biblical times" is a vain attempt to save his own face; his "argument" yelling at the experts to "prove it, prove it, prove it" a clanging cymbal sounding his inability.

That said, X proceeds with his misguided case "to show examples where biblical characters obviously experienced feelings of guilt". There is no need to speak to any of these in any detail; They are all cases in which X either arbitrarily makes "guilt" the emotion experienced, though it is not mentioned in the text (in other words, he continues to commit the serious mistake of reading it into the texts) or appeals to some modern translation that does the same (never mind that none of the translators are/were qualified as social scientists or anthropologists). In some cases, like 2 Sam. 12:13, he actually confuses a statement of legal guilt with a feeling of guilt and then, admitting that this is indeed all the text says, winds back to the same serious mistake of assuming that the feeling had to be there, not because X has actually done any serious social-science study refuting Malina, Rohrbaugh (Richard or Robert, either one), deSilva, Neyrey, etc. His hayseed "who can believe" commentary as a "reason" to think that guilt existed in Biblical times is, again, a non-argument reflecting only his own lack of serious education.

More on that in a moment. On the side, X thinks to find some inconsistency in the matter of translation use, as though I do as he does (quoting translations to prove a point without concern for anything else) but the best he seems able to do is find ONE place, eight or more years ago, where he thinks I referred to the NIV translation of Genesis 10:5 to "explain" the inconsistency of the biblical claim in this chapter that nations and tribes of the earth spoke different languages, whereas the next chapter tells the Tower of Babel myth in which it was claimed that the whole earth spoke the same language until Yahweh "confounded" their language. He does not describe this usage of mine at all, and it's easy to see why, for here is what I said:

How can this be so, since Babel was yet in the future and there was still one language? Modern translations make this a parenthetical note, an expression of what would take place - not an event that was presently in effect.

So in fact this isn't even a matter of what a word means, as it is here; it is a matter of punctuation -- something the Hebrew text lacked! The one example X offers up of my alleged "inconsistency" isn't even applicable to the case at hand.

Now back to guilt and shame. We saw of course that X was soundly corrected by Rohrbaugh (via Kesler) on this issue; X knowing little of the difference between the two estimates that there "seems to be an overlapping of these emotions, which makes it difficult to imagine someone's experiencing the one without experiencing at least some of the other." He is right about overlapping; the difference, as has been noted in links and material above, and as he even admits to an extent, is that shame is caused by external vectors whereas guilt is the result of an internal vector (what we call "conscience") that developed as a result of the ability to introspect at leisure. Of course we have not lost shame as a reaction when we developed into a guilt society; but shame societies nevertheless remain without a concept of "conscience" guilt (as our native informant from China told us above). X may "find it hard to imagine that someone could feel shame without also feeling guilt" but that is no more than a problem of his limited imagination and experience. One supposes next that X will try the same tack another ignorant reader once did, suggesting that these people had guilt in reality, but suppress it; or that people like our Chinese informant are liars, etc. No doubt some such bigoted retort will emerge from behind X's white sheet, but it remains that for texts like 1 Tim. 1:9, "hold faith and a good conscience," Paul refers not to some internal Jiminy Cricket, but a moral sense that Timothy acquired from external vectors (his family, peer group, etc.) and which would continue to be his moral motivation in the days ahead. Searing of conscience would result in inability to feel shame, not guilt.

X briefly alludes to the Abiathar issue (one which he quit in disgrace on, thanks, I'd say, to this very subject; his objections were fully and already answered in a reply he continues to ignore) and then we are back to X spitting hayseed at his betters again, even repeatedly spelling Malina's name wrong after a certain point ("Molina") and committing again and again the serious mistake of reading guilt into the Biblical text. Once again, there is no need to reply to each specific example, for X remains amply refuted by his inability to come with any material of authority (and his alleged "rebuttal" to the high/low context issue has also stood answered here for an extended period, and we are still waiting for his answer to that; and there is already an answer present on-site to his "Roman time" diatribe -- he can find it himself, since it will engender his obsession and make him healthier). A Skeptical advisor who suggests that X is not worthy of my attention I daresay is correct -- then again, minimum force jobs like these and minimum force subjects like X whose main skill is blowing hard don't require a lot of attention.