Vinnie

"The challenge is simple: Pick up any essay of mine and refute it. Contact me for terms of exchange. And if I hear nothing, I'll guess I'll just have to assume that no one can respond to my material."
http://www.tektonics.org/masoud01.html

I just finished a critique of J.P. Holding's article "Nativity and Nitpicking".
http://www.acfaith.com/jpinfancy.html

Constructive criticism or critial reviewing is invited and appreciated. Maybe I'll end up corresponding with Holding in a few days regarding "his challenge."

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

You might enjoy this collection of responses:

http://exposed.faithweb.com/

You speak of "indigenous harmonization attempts" -- surely you mean "ingenious"?

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

ingenious, yes thanks for pointing that error out.

I wasn't aware of that link. I'll archive it for future reference. I'm not too interested in reading anything more on or by Holding at the moment.

Vinnie

Tercel

Hmm... you appear to be attacking Holding for not doing something he never claims he is. ie Holding's stated purpose is to explain how it is possible that the birth narratives are so different despite both being Truth (which Holding assumes). Holding then explains this. You take him to task for offering no evidence that they are Truth. Well, yeah he doesn't, but that's not his argument.
To be pedantic: Holding's statement that the birth narratives are "as solid as ever" is correct given that he's done nothing to make them more solid or less solid.

Apart from that just a few quibbles,
I think you've go overboard with the BOLD CAPS and the Holding-is-stupid rhetoric. I know it's very appealing and fun to do (which is why I always try and re-edit anything like that I write several times before posting it to get all the nasties out) but it's really not good practice unless you personally are a recognised authority on the subject - since you berating him for stupidity is basically an argument from authority with yourself as the authority. It makes you look biased and give Holding the opportunity to say "Look how upset this atheist is by my brilliant work. Gee it must be good if it upsets them that much!". (Think of your own discussions on these boards ) If you write the article well, then the reader should conclude themselves that Holding is utterly wrong and stupid without you once mentioning or implying it. I mention this partially tongue-in-cheek because I know I have the same problem - God only knows how many times I'm going to have to re-edit my forthcoming-with-Christmas article on the Jesus Myth before it meets my standard of absolutely zero rhetoric and 100% fact that I've set myself.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with you in rejecting Millar's comments. Sure a single-attestation coming from a "very late" (and I would question the certainty with which you assert Matthew is to be dated that late, and even if the final redaction is you don't seem to deal much with the possibility of an earlier tradition) and theologically interpretive source (although, I don't see that the "author's main goal was not recording accurate history or strict biographical accounts of Jesus' life and ministry" implies that the author didn't have a desire for historical accuracy, and I doubt you think so either but that's what you seem to be saying) is very good proof of history. But it is some evidence - enough to believe it if we find the alleged events reasonably possible in our world-view and little enough not to worry if we don't. Certainly it falls well short of the standards of proven history, but that doesn't necessitate it being likely unhistorical.


PS The link from your article to Holding's article doesn't appear to work - you need to remove the %20 from the end of the href tag or remove the space from within whatever application's generating the HTML.

Vorkosigan

Some very minor editing problems:

"despite the measure his father"

Should be "measures"

"there is a clear motif for creating "

Do you mean "motive" or "motif" as if the Moses story were a template?

hand-waive dismiss

wave -- and this usage is odd, both are verbs and should be separated by a conjunction of some kind "hand-wave and dismiss"

speculated sources

should be "speculative sources"

80 to 90 before them

leaves out "years"

bonafide

Should be two words in italics??

paper which

this sentence is missing the comma before "which"


It should be noted that some of the individual arguments cited above against the historicity of the Matthean Magi story can be argued against

This sentence ends in a clumsy way. Wouldn't it be smoother to say "...are themselves of questionable validity" or something similar, instead of "can be argued against".

Hope his helps. Good stuff.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Tercel, I mentioned that Holding was saying he was speculating in the article. I said that was fine but then I went to comment on this:

Holding: "In the meantime, we close this day, and our second edition of this essay with a reminder that, although critical history and the NT record itself proves that the traditional Nativity and the birth of Jesus itself being on Dec. 25 are anachronisms, the basic data behind them remains as solid as ever. "

I wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't included this. Don't tell me his comment that "the basic data behind them is as solid as ever" should be read disconnected from his actual article and all those links???

Also, Holding's own words in his intro: "Can the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke be harmonized? Can they be supposed to be historical? In this essay - which we will add to each time at this year until we are finished - we will attempt to answer these questions."

Maybe Holding just didn't get to any questions of historicity yet? Unfortunately, nothing in this paper justifies his conclusion that I cited. What holding is doing here appears evident in his own words. I cannot critique what Holding might have meant and not said. All I can do is critique the thoughts he actually wrote.

True, technically, but that is only because the statement says absolutely nothing because his paper says absolutely nothing on the subject. but I harrd doubt Holding meant to literally say "absolutely nothing" here. We all know what Holding is doing and his own words I cited above indicate it. If he would just come out and say at the top, "Hey I'm writing ONLY for conservative inerrantists here I wouldn't have bothered with it. Its also called "Some Preliminary and Informed Speculation on the Formation and Validity of the Birth Narratives". Holding is defending the infancy narratives and he concludes that some of the traditional manger scenes we all see are slightly off (which he argues in the paper) but that the data behind the IN's is just as solid as ever. Why should this comment be disconnected from his paper?

Holding's speculation is hardly informed here and he never bothers with the validity. Maybe in upcoming episodes? Well, until then please remove or modify the conclusion, Mr. Holding.

Its hard not to with Holding. He makes fun of everybody and the natural response is to berate and flame him when he authors nonsense like this. I will go through and edit a few comments here and there that might have been too "attackative". You are right and thanks for pointing that out. The monkey and the banana one was probably too harsh. My apologies on this. And all the bold was there because I trully did find it hard to believe that in all of that entire paper, Holding had not offered one positive evidence for accepting the historicity of the infancy narratives. It was amazing and not in a good way.

One does not need a phd in science to tell someone who is arguing that the earth is flat that they are slightly out of touch with reality. Holding's "informed criticism" on the infancy narrratives is just horrendous. From my eyes, the piece is just that bad.

Anyone is free to believe the Magi story despite the historical reasons for not believing it. You say it falls well short and I agree. But Holding says it just as solid as ever! Miller's comment seems to have no appreciation of standard historical inquiry in to the HJ and that is why I critiqued it. You can see shades of his inerrancy doctrine coming through and that isn't history, its apologetics. A singly attested tradition that is late could be authentic. Unfortunately, as you say, it does not meet tests to historicity that are necessitated by the nature of the Gospels themselves (which you just affirmed) and this being late and singly attested is not even close to all the problems against it as I outlined above! And I dated Matthew around 80 to 90 AD (critical consensus dating). Holding, however, would argue that all four gospels probably pre-date 70 AD.

As for a "final redaction of Matt" which would push the dating of the infancy source back earlier, this is problematic in light of Marcan priority which you no doubt, probably do not dispute. Matthew must date later than Mark which, Holding's belief not withstanding, is dated circa 70 AD. Both works are, in a sense somewhat "late" (Matthew slightly more so) and given their nature, that is why we need these tests. If you read The Historical Jesus you know that Matthew falls in Crossan's third stratum. Not to say I agree with his classification of sources and exact methodology (early and multiply attested are two thirds of it).

Vinnie

Vinnie

Vork, thanks so much for that proof-read

Going to fix all that right now

Vinnie

Family Man

One more minor edit: towards the end, in a bolded section, you have historica instead of historical. Pardons if someone else already pointed that out.

Vinnie

Checking visitors to my site, I found out I made Holding's trophy room:
http://www.tektonics.org/trophyroom.html

This is his response to my article:

http://www.tektonics.org/sapone01.html

Note, I have not read it yet. Just figured I would post it.

Steven Carr

Is this the same JP Holding who says Gospel stories were 'contrived' and claims 'parthenos' meant 'virgin' in the Septuagint, although he hides from his gullible readers that the Septuagint uses 'parthenos' in Genesis 34:3 to describe a woman who has been raped?

http://www.tektonics.org/flanksteak.html is where Holding fails to tell his readers the whole truth (yet again)