Darkside_Spirit

Not that I'm suggesting Holding should be taken seriously. Everything I've seen indicates that he is a delusional hypocrite (the funniest example is his interpretation of "turn the other cheek" as prohibiting people from trading in insults--clearly, he himself is in total compliance with that rule. ) However, I came across a <a href="http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_EXF.html" target="_blank">page</a> on his "Tektonics" site which, inbetween all the usual insults and semi-amusing quips ("Exhaust Fumes", "Carr Repairs", etc) does seem to contain a smattering of serious points. I was wondering whether Carr has written rebuttals to any of Holding's criticisms.

(thanks to Toto)

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: Darkside_Spirit ]</p>

Toto

use url= instead of link= for an automatic hotlink.

Steven Carr

I couldn't be bothered wading thru the insults looking for the serious points. (Nor has Turkel ever asked me to link to it)

If you have done this tedious work of looking for the serious points for me, perhaps you could start a thread here on some of them.

Darkside_Spirit

Okay, here are his "serious points" summarised:

• Why would an eyewitness like Matthew need to use ninety percent of somebody else's book? --Holding challenges you to demonstrate that direct copying is more likely than oral transmission, and that direct copying does not preclude the copyist being an eyewitness.
• Comparing Matthew 15:4 with Mark 7:10, Mark represents a more Gentile attitude in quoting the Old Testament as "Moses said" rather than "God said." Matthew, a Jew, would never have attributed the 10 commandments to Moses. It was God who said them, as all Jews will tell you. --Holding claims that "such scrupulous methods of citation did not obtain in antiquity". He also mentions that, in Matthew 8:4, something "commanded by Moses" comes from Leviticus and that in the Pauline Epistles, things said by God were attributed to Moses (e.g. Romans 10:5). Holding concludes that "Moses was used as a shorthand for anything in the books attributed to him". He adds that the commandments were written down by Moses at Mount Sinai, so the "Moses said" citation is technically correct anyway. I'd be especially interested to see Carr reply here, as this seems to be the strongest criticism in Holding's essay.
• Mark 5:22: "One of the rulers of the synagogue." Diaspora synagogues may sometimes have had more than ruler, as at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:15), but Palestinian synagogues normally had only one. Matthew 9:18, drops this phrase. --On the "one of the rulers of the synagogue" issue, Holding comments: "A key word here is "normally" - we have no direct evidence that all synagogues in Palestine had only one ruler, and as this was the ruler of the synagogue in Capernaum, there is no guarantee that the independent-minded Galileeans there followed supposed typical Palestinian practice over sometime Diaspora practice." Additionally, Matthew says "a ruler came", so according to Holding, Matthew hasn't corrected Mark at all.
• There is evidence in "rabbinic sources and Josephus" that 14 Nisan was sometimes loosely referred to as the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
• Perhaps the man carrying a pitcher of water was a servant, or a member of the Essene faction, whose men "eschewed marriage and carried their own water".
• On Mark 15:42 (confusion over Jewish days), Holding states: "There is no "confusion" at all - the term "evening" here referred to a time 1-2 hours before and after sunset, a 4-hour time span. The point is that Friday had less than a couple of hours to go."
• At Mark 15:46, the purchase could have been made prior to the Sabbath, or a Gentile servant could have made it. Alternatively, Joseph could have believed it was better to "obey the spirit of the law and honour a deceased holy man of God".
• Holding claims that Mark 1:2 "conflates" a quote from Malachi and Isaiah, and attributes it to the "major name" prophet. Matthew does the same thing with Jer and Zec (Mat 27:10).
• If Jews did think that God gave authority to men to forgive sins, then what, Holding asks, of the Jews objecting in Matthew that Jesus was blaspheming?
• "Eloi" and "Eli" would not be very different coming from a man on a cross ten feet above the ground.
• When going from "Cornwall to London by way of Manchester", Jesus intended to visit the middle town; it was part of his itinerary.
• The Dalmanutha issue is "rather silly" because it is "an argument from silence" and there are not many records from the 1st century.

I'll leave it there for the moment.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Darkside_Spirit ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Darkside_Spirit ]</p>

Steven Carr

90% usage and Turkel challenges me to show that is not eyewitness work? Is this serious? Does he have counterexamples?

The nature of the copying precludes oral transmission (apart from the obvious fact that Mark's Gospel was written, so there is a prima facie case that people read it)

For example, Matthew removes 'for the forgivness of sins' from a passage about John the Baptist in Mark and transfers it to an entirely different place in his Gospel.


There is a difference between Leviticus and the 10 Commandments (written directly by God on the tablets).

Is Romans 10:5 a direct quote from Leviticus? (Or Matthew 8:4)

I'm baffled why changing two rulers to one, should be counted by Turkel as no change.

Turkel is using an argument from silence here. Ask him if arguments from silence are correct.

Fact. Matthew changed Mark here. I have given the most plausible reason, which I admit has no *guarantee* of being correct. Has Turkel given any reason for these changes?

</strong>

Could have. Might have. Perhaps.

Fact. Matthew changed Mark here. I have given the most plausible reason, which I admit has no *guarantee* of being correct. Has Turkel given any reason for these changes?


</strong>

Does Turkel have any evidence that Mark was referring to 1-2 hours before sunset?

Fact. Matthew changed Mark here. I have given the most plausible reason, which I admit has no *guarantee* of being correct. Has Turkel given any reason for these changes?


</strong>

Could have. Might have. Perhaps.

Fact. Matthew changed Mark here. I have given the most plausible reason, which I admit has no *guarantee* of being correct. Has Turkel given any reason for these changes?

</strong>

So there are even more mistakes in the Bible than I thought.

</strong>

So if Matthew says the Jews were objecting, then they were, according to Turkel.

</strong>

More dull rationalisations. Muslims do the same.

As for the witnesses not being able to make out what Jesus said, does that mean that they made errors in transcribing his words?

Darkside_Spirit

Thanks for the replies, Steven

CX

I don't want to hijack this thread and in particular I avoid those of Turkel's ilk like the plague since nothing is to be gained from arguing with them, but this is, in my opinion, willfully blind.

Consider the the editorial gloss in GMk's "mini-apocalypse":

GMk 13:14
"But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

we find the same editorial gloss, verbatim, in roughly the same place in GMt's narrative:

GMt 24:15
"Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)"

Now how could this even conceivably be a product of oral transmission? The statement is coherent only in the context of a written work and the fact that it occurs in both GMt and GMk in the same place and identically phrased and that this phrase occurs nowhere else in the entire NT (or OT for that matter) is clear evidence of a literary interdependence.

Steven Carr

I should point out that all of Turkel's objections are possible. However, they are all ad hoc with little explanatory power, and not connected to each other.

The idea that Matthew changed Mark explains more of these points, and is a better explanation.

Tercel

Wouldn't it be funny if "(let the reader understand)" turned out to not actually have been in the original of one of the Gospels?
Is there any reason it couldn't be an insertion into both Gospels by the early church? (or perhaps an early copyist added it to one of the Gospels to bring that Gospel into agreement with the other)

CX

I've considered that possibility myself, but I can't see any good justification for copyist inserting that comment. It really doesn't add anything to the context of the passage. If anything I would expect it to be removed.

Certainly anything is possible as regards the transmission of the original text, but given the weight of the overall argument that there is a literary interdependence there is no reason to look for another explanation unless one is a priori committed to the notion that the texts are independent. Literary interdependence is the simply the best solution to the overarching issues.