Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

This article shows James Holding to be the rank amateur, liar, and deceiver that he is.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...nds-to-jp.html

Originally Posted by Toto

Quotable: "a Holding pattern seen throughout his review: A series of self-assured statements that turn out to be false, sloppy, misleading, or outright lies."

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I believe that J.P.Holding criticised his text critical abilities?

Judging from the comments, Dr. Avalos seems a little unclear as to the category difference between an epigraphic and a literary text, the latter being the sort on which text critics practise, since he is comparing the transmission of one with the other.

Originally Posted by John W. Loftus

Thanks for noticing. I wonder what Holding will say for himself now?

There's so much mud on his face what will he do? :huh:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Judging from the comments, Dr. Avalos seems a little unclear as to the category difference between an epigraphic and a literary text, the latter being the sort on which text critics practise, since he is comparing the transmission of one with the other.

Originally Posted by Hector Avalos

REFUTATION 1: “Avalos is not a textual scholar.”

In trying to refute my claims about our inability to reconstruct the originals of biblical texts, Holding draws on the “credentials card” to refute my arguments. However, this is a bad argument on at least two counts:

1) He is wrong about me not being a textual scholar.

2) If I am unable to render judgments on textual criticism because I am not a “textual scholar,” then his own ability to render text critical judgments would be vulnerable to the same objection since he is also not a textual scholar.

This is so because he has given me the following criteria for being a “textual scholar” (e-mail 1-9-08):

A textual scholar is someone whose specialization is textual criticism, who is recognized as such by his peers and who publishes material on this subject. By this account, Dan Wallace, Bart Ehrman, Bruce Metzger, the Alands, are all textual scholars.

If we analyze this further, Holding provides 2 specific criteria:

1. Specialization in textual criticism

2. Recognized by peers who publish material on the subject

I may not be the most prominent textual scholar in biblical studies, but that does not mean that I have not been certified by my peers in textual criticism. In fact, some of my earliest specialization in my publishing career was in textual criticism. My credentials are as follows:

1. Formal training in textual criticism at Harvard under F. M. Cross and John Strugnell regarded as perhaps two of the foremost textual critics of the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls in the last century.

2. Peer reviewed contributions in textual criticism involving Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ladino, Spanish, and Latin texts. These contributions are as follows:

"The Biblical Sources of Columbus's Libro de las profec�*as," Traditio 49 (1994) 331-335.

A Ladino Version of the Targum of Ruth," Estudios B�*blicos 54 (2, 1996)165-182.

Deuro/deute and the Imperatives of HLK New Criteria for the kaige Recension of Reigns," Estudios B�*blicos 47 (1989) 165-176.

The last article reported my discovery of new criteria for the recension of the Greek Bible known as Kaige. I found that the Old Greek recension of the LXX used forms of the Greek word poreuomai to translate the unlengthened imperatives of the Hebrew word transcribed here as HLK (means “to go”), while the so-called Kaige recensions uses the Greek words deuro and deute.

These new criteria have been confirmed and modified by other textual critics, such as in the following article: E. Eynikel and J. Lust, “The Use of [Deuro] and [Deute] in the LXX,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 67:1 (April, 1991): 57-68. For the abstract of this article, see here.

My work on Columbus tried to identify, through the use of textual criticism, the exact edition of the Latin Bible used by Columbus. My work on the Ladino version of the Targum of Ruth critiqued the idea that all printed editions of the Targum of Ruth descended from the so-called Nurnberg manuscript.

In short, I have met the criteria provided by Holding. Further evidence of being regarded by other scholars as competent in textual criticism was the assignment to review the following book by a major archaeological journal:

Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Greek Palaeography (Oxford, 1981) in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 (1985) 85-87.

In contrast, Mr. Holding offers us no peer reviewed publications in textual criticism in recognized journals (his own convoluted musings on his websites don’t count). Nor does any recognized textual scholar I know cite any of his contributions in textual criticism.

When I asked him (e-mail 1-9-08) “what peer reviewed publications have you written in textual criticism?”--- he did not answer that question at all. When I asked him what peer reviewed publications he had written in biblical studies, his response was: “Why? Do you not know where to find them? Is that why your work is so poor?”