James Patrick Holding
vs. Darrell W. Conder

(Note: My old friend "James Patrick Holding" is at it again—another critical review of yours truly posted in July, 2005 on his Jesus-for-sale web page. This time it is a follow up on his "Darrell Conder, Another Apostate Without Education" critique.)

Let me start by apologizing to you Jimmy, as I didn't know you had been hiding behind a nom de plume until I read about your run-in with Farrell Till on his The Skeptical Review web page—you remember Jimmy, the one where you demanded that Farrell pay you $3024 before you would stand up for your beliefs! God, Jimmy Pat, talk about putting a price tag on Jesus—to ask for three grand—cash on the nail! Anyway, so your real name is Robert Turkel . . . hmmmmm . . . do you mind if I keep calling you Jimmy Pat? For some reason I like that better than Bobby Turkel.

Now Jimmy Pat, I know Farrell gave you a sound thrashing in front of the whole born-again world, but clutch you KJV tightly because I'm going to give you more of the same here. However, before I put on my boots, let me first fill you in on something about that word "apostate," which you Lord-loving-hacks like to sling at anyone who knocks holes in your religious livelihood. My computer dictionary defines "apostate" as "A person who has defected: defector, apostate, betrayer, deserter, recreant, renegade, tergiversator [to use evasions or ambiguities], traitor, turncoat." What this means is that unless you, James Patrick Holding, can prove that you are following every word of God, as taught in your "holy" bible, and are teaching others to follow that word, then you too qualify as an apostate. Moreover, reading on your site that you attend a Southern Baptist Church, your religious heritage is one born in pure apostasy, which is really a laughable concept since the "Holy Mother Church" that spawned Protestantism is itself a bastardized faith born out of Constantine's fourth century Holy Roman Empire. Even worse, the so-called primitive faith of the mythical apostles is itself a bastardization of even earlier faiths, which are themselves conglomerations woven from Canaanite mythology. (What's that old warning Jimmy—in vain do they worship me, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men?) So, my old friend, your use of "apostate" is a meaningless exercise for the enlightened mind, but of course plays well for your faithful as a subliminal ploy to prejudice them in your favor.

I will admit JP that in this latest round you are at a decided advantage, since you are mainly preaching to the choir on your web site. And, you know (as do most writers) that few if any of your readers will ever bother to check out references—and they certainly will not check out my writings or web site, since they are the victims of lifelong programming to shun anyone branded with the "heretic" or "apostate" labels. Like virtually all religious peoples, your sheep have been programmed to place their faith in the words of man.

Now Jimmy, I noticed in your latest rant that you neglected to answer the mountain of evidence from my web site that totally shreds your bible and its god. Instead you poked around and found a few minor points to criticize, which is a good strategy since it might distract weaker minded readers and keep them from going to my site and doing their own homework. The last thing you want is your readers looking at www.darrellwconder.com—I know, since my writings have brought more than one church and its minister to total ruination!

Okay, let's take a look at your pitiful points: "Conder writes of '150,000 conflicting words or verses in the 'original' Greek New Testament from which Christianity derives its holy book.' Like Stanton, Conder doesn't 'get' that if 'oops' is spelled 'oeps' in 5000 mss., that is counted as 5000 variants out of the 150,000. None of them actually problematic to Christian faith. He doesn't name many of these variants, nor explain why we should be worried. It also doesn't occur to him that the words of The Complete Gospels, which say, 'The Greek texts behind our English translation is a reconstruction produced by patient and exacting comparison of thousands of differences in wording among the numerous copies,' is GOOD news for us, as it shows that the practice of textual criticism, of figuring out the original text as we do for ALL ancient documents, is alive and well."

Come on Jimmy Pat! Maybe these smug declarations play well with a born-again moron, but really! We are dealing with a purported book of life here, which warns us that if we fail to heed every word it shall cost us our eternal lives! Are you seriously claiming that thousands of differences in wording and text being guessed at by god knows what kind of unscrupulous men over the course of the Christian church's notoriously corrupt 2,000-year history is a GOOD THING for faithful Christians! Bleedin' Jesus, Jimmy! Those words would be enough to cause Jesus to fall off his cross laughing! For anyone who has done their homework and possesses an ounce of logic, the true state of the so-called original Greek New Testament is the worst news imaginable! 2 Timothy 3:16 teaches that every word of your bible is God-breathed, and Psalms 18:30 says that God is perfect and his word is flawless, which means that today and throughout the preceding centuries we should have a perfect bible. If we don't have a flawless bible then Psalm 18:30 is a lie. Moreover, since Jesus Christ commanded Christians to live by every word of God, how the hell can you do that if all those different Greek MSS contain even a few errors? And what's up with the Lord anyway. If every word of the bible is inspired by God and flawless, and nothing is impossible for him, then (as my friend Lawrence Anthony is fond of asking) why didn't he keep the bible PERFECT in every language on earth so that Christians can read it without pulpit-pounding, tithe-rakers like you having to try and "explain" away all the "holy" errors in the stacks of countless different translations?

As to your lightly-passed-over suggestion that the 150,000 variant readings of the ancient Greek MSS don't really matter because they are minor things like misspelled words, Jimmy you know this is a dodge. Ignoring the fact that the bible proclaims itself flawless, which 150,000 variations make into a joke, there are some major variants contained in the ancient Greek NT manuscripts, and even a causal read through a translation like the New International Version or the New King James Version, with special attention to the footnotes, will show this to be a fact.

In your criticism of me, you cited Dr. Bruce Metzger as a scholarly authority, so let's note that in his book, The Text Of The New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption & Restoration, Metzger discusses the errors in the New Testament and categorizes them as Unintentional Errors and Intentional Changes, which he breaks down as follows:

Unintentional errors

Errors arising from faulty eyesight
Errors arising from faulty hearing
Errors of the mind
Errors of judgement
Intentional changes
Changes involving spelling and grammar
Harmonistic corruptions
Addition of natural complements and similar adjuncts
Clearing up historical and geographical difficulties
Conflation of readings
Alterations made because of doctrinal considerations
Addition of miscellaneous details

(Bruce M Metzger, The Text Of The New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption & Restoration, 1992, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 186-206.)

Now come on, Jimmy! What Dr. Metzger admits certainly goes way beyond misspelling "oops", as you deceptively suggested in your reply to my research. And when he notes "Alterations made because of doctrinal considerations", what he is politely saying is that copyist monks INSERTED LIES because some "man of God" didn't like what he read in the original and simply changed the text to suit his own doctrine! This brings to mind an observation by Robin Lane Fox from his book The Unauthorized Version, which concerns Marcion's tampering with the New Testament in the second century A.D.: "In the 140s an important Christian, Marcion, troubled many of his fellow Christians by producing a 'Gospel' which abbreviated Luke's so as to suit his theology . . . He edited ten letters of Paul, changing and omitting bits which he did not like and also omitted the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. This enterprise played havoc with the written text. . . . If Christian texts were being changed and edited to this degree, even a gap of a century between the original and its first survival on a papyrus is a long and potentially dangerous time. We simply do not know what may have happened to the author's words at important places." (The Unauthorized Version Truth and Fiction in the Bible. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publisher, 1991, pp. 139-140.)

Speaking of tampering Jimmy, the fact is that your church has no complete New Testament dating before the fourth century. And even worse, there are only some eighty-eight fragments dating before 300 A.D. and of this number there are only a few that date before A.D. 180. Christian scholars like to say that the errors found in these fragments are inconsequential. However we can take the example of two early papyri from the Gospel of John, which overlap across seventy verses, and, as Robin Lane Fox notes, "even if the plain errors of their copyists are excluded, they differ at no less than seventy small places." (Fox, Robin Lane, op. cit., p. 139.)

Hey Jimmy! Only a couple of surviving fragments of your holy book from the second century and they contain seventy conflicting differences! What this means is that Christianity has no way of knowing what kind of "holy" book they are now following. This state of affairs gets even worse when one considers that the propensity of Christians Fathers to lie stands behind a monk copyist in the fourth century inserting a totally and completely spurious verse into a Latin translation of the book of I John (5:7). It is known as the Johannine Comma, and as the editors of Harper's Bible Commentary note: "This gloss [LIE!], apparently motivated by early trinitarian debates, is not found in any Greek manuscript before the fifteenth century." (Harper's Bible Commentary, p. 1294.)

This false insertion occurred at the time when the doctrine of the Trinity was being officially adopted by Christianity from the pagan mystery religions. Once it found its way into the Latin Vulgate, the lie was inserted into the translation of Erasmus, Stephanus and eventually into the King James Version. (See New Bible Commentary Revised, p. 1269; Peake's Commentary on the Bible, p. 1038.) Here are the words that do not appear in the original Greek manuscript: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one." It was inserted before the following: "For there are three that bear record, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The insertion may have been a bold face lie, but the "great" Martin Luther hatefully declared that if any Christian dared to question the doctrine of the Trinity that "I would threaten to cut their tongues out from their throats, if they refuse to acknowledge the truth that God is a Trinity." (Telushkin, Joseph. Jewish Literacy, The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1991, p. 205.)

Let me make this point again: Historians—nor you Jimmy—can know under what circumstances your so-called original Greek bible was produced, nor how many deliberate changes were made by the notoriously corrupt Christian Church Fathers, most of whom were "converts" from pagan mystery religions. Thankfully for the coffers of your kind, the Christian Church tortured and burned people for questioning or producing histories of this corruption, and it destroyed every bit of evidence it could lay its bloody hands on to keep the truth from ever surfacing—and, for added insurance, for about eleven hundred years it dominated education in the Christian world and forbade the bible to be translated into "vulgar" tongues, the penalty for which was being burned alive with the offending translation. What do you suppose your Church Fathers were afraid of, Jimmy?

When I debated Christian apologist Eric V. Snow back in the 90s, he acknowledged that there were some 200,000 estimated variations in the New Testament, but excused this fact with the following remark: "Scholars Geisler and Nix, building upon the work of F.J.A. Hort, said only about 1/8 [of the 200,000] have weight, with 1/60 [of the 200,000] being 'substantial variation.'" Eric adds to his defense by also quoting the well-known NT scholars C.F. Sitterly and J.H. Greenlee as saying: "Such a wealth of evidence makes it all the more certain that the original words of the NT have been preserved somewhere within the MSS." (See my answer to Eric Snow posted on www.darrellwconder.com; and Norman Geisler and William Nix. A General Introduction To The Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968; C.F. Sitterly and J. H. Greenlee, "Text and MSS of the NT" in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, revised ed., Vol. 4, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988.)

Did you catch that Jimmy? What Sitterly and Greenlee are saying is that "somewhere within all the conflicting Greek MSS" one can ferret out the "truth" of "God's word"—if they can read ancient Greek that is! Now, take out your handy pocket calculator and take the 200,000 NT variations admitted by Christian scholars and divide by 8, which are the number of scriptural errors Geisler and Nix say are weighty. That's 25,000 NT variations of weight! Now, let's divide 200,000 by 60. We come up with 3,333 New Testament variations which these two Christians scholars said were substantial! Taking the low number of 3,333 substantial variations, wouldn't you agree Jimmy that you have a major headache trying to fulfill Jesus's command that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God?

All this takes us to Dr. Brooke Foss Westcott and Dr. Fenton John Anthony Hort and their The New Testament in the Original Greek, which is the Greek text standing behind most modern New Testament translations. Although there is a mountain of Christian infighting about Westcott and Hort's supposed "original" Greek NT, this isn't the place for that. Instead, let's go on to another "original" Greek bible composed by Dr. Eberhard Nestle in 1898, called the Novum Testamentum Graece Cum Apparatu Critico Curavit, and now known as the Nestle/Aland Greek Text. Nestle's work is but a continuation of the Wescott-Hort "original" Green NT, and is heavily employed for most major modern New Testament translations. Well-known Christian educator and author Rev. Dr. Donald A. Waite, in his book Defending the King James Bible (p. 39), offers this complaint about the Nestle/Aland translation: "The fact that there have been TWENTY-SIX EDITIONS IN EIGHTY-ONE YEARS (a new edition every 3.1 years) would give you the DISTINCT impression that these men, and their followers, who put confidence in their editions, have NO ASSURANCE WHATEVER of what ARE NOT the very and the exact GREEK WORDS OF GOD in the New Testament!" (The emphasis is Dr. Waite's.)

Dr. Waite goes on to explain that the 26th edition of the Nestle/Aland Greek Text was edited by Kurt Aland, who (Waite says) was an agnostic, Matthew Black, whom he says was also an "unbeliever," Cardinal Carlo M. Martini and Bruce Metzger, about whom Dr. Waite writes: ". . . who is from Princeton, a man who demonstrated his apostasy as editor of the Reader's Digest Bible, and Alan Wigren, who is also labeled as 'an apostate.'"

Did you catch that Jimmy? Rev. Dr. Waite calls Bruce Metzger, your cited "authority," an APOSTATE! (Hey, by applying that label to me you unintentionally put me in good Christian company!) Seriously, Jimmy, this again demonstrates my point which is that you "men of God" cut each other's ecclesiastical throats or heap praises depending on the circumstances of your needs at any given moment. (I have no doubt that Dr. Waite would use Bruce Metzger as a positive example if the need and opportunity arose.) So, arguing about whose cited reference is better is an exercise in futility.

You write: "Conder tells us: 'The question here is what comprises the original Greek? At every turn one will find that this is a complicated and virtually impossible question to answer' and we are actually told that new mss. discoveries 'further complicate matters'! How, we are not told. Conder thinks that 'the existence of these mss. is not a welcomed fact in Christendom' but Bruce Metzger, the Alands, and Evangelical scholarship haven't heard that news."

Come on JP! Are you saying with a straight face that Bruce Metzger and Kurt Aland are unaware that there is any controversy over what comprises the "original Greek" of the New Testament? Is this why Metzger and Aland sat in on the editorial committee of the 26th edition of the Nestle/Aland Greek Text? If there was no controversy then why produce a 26th edition of a bible that was built upon a long line of successive so-called original Greek bibles? Why dump the previous twenty-five other editions of the Nestle/Aland "original" Greek in the first place, or the Westcott and Hort edition of the "original Greek," or even the Textus Receptus, the supposed "original Greek" behind the King James Version—and you of all people ought to know what a complicated hodgepodge the Textus Receptus is?

Let's again turn to Dr. Waite, who criticizes Westcott and Hort's work by charging that Hort deliberately understates the number of variances between his reconstructed Greek New Testament translation and the "original" Textus Receptus, or the "received" Greek text behind the King James Version of the New Testament. Waite notes that he counted some 5,604 places where Westcott and Hort "rejected the Textus Receptus", which includes 9,970 Greek words that were either added, subtracted or changed from what he terms the original Textus Receptus. Waite calculated that these changes came to 45.9 pages of differences within the whole of the New Testament (See Waite's The Four-Fold Superiority of the King James Version, Collingswood, New Jersey, 1992, pp. 5-6.) Almost 46 pages Jimmy! Hey, the next time you open your New Testament count out forty-six pages and hold them between your thumb and index finger and consider how many changes we are discussing in this one version of the "original Greek" New Testament! By criticizing your touted scholar I know I'm opening one of those my-scholars-are-better-than-your-scholars can of worms. But the fact is that there is an army of good Christians out there who disparage Bruce Metzger's work and the work of those like him who have made a very good living selling their scholarly services to those who preach the lies of "God's Word" to the uniformed masses. This is why some of us don't roll over on our backs and pee our pants at the mention of Metzger's name, nor any of the other so-called scholars who sell their services to the Jesus-for-sale industry. To your readers I will simply suggest that they not to be followers of men, but to do their own homework and allow their brains to do what they were designed to do—think for themselves!

Considering how much emphasis you put on Christian scholarship Jimmy, let me enlighten you and my readers about my quoted source, D. A. Waite. Here are his credentials: he received a Bachelor of Arts in classical Greek and Latin from the University of Michigan in 1948, a Master of Theology, with high honors, in New Testament Greek Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1952, a Master of Arts in Speech from Southern Methodist University in 1953, a Doctor of Theology, with honors, in Bible Exposition from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1955, and a Ph.D. in Speech from Purdue University in 1961. He holds both New Jersey and Pennsylvania teacher certificates in Greek and Language Arts. Although this background probably won't impress some born-agains, you being a Southern Baptist must surely admit that Dr. Waite has some credibility when it comes to the question of Greek New Testament corruption.

You write that "Conder supposes [that the conflicting verse found in the different mss] causes'no small embarrassment for countless theologians'." To this you declare: "It does not, not among serious commentators." Is that so Jimmy? If it is of no concern to the Christian ministry then why are so many "serious commentators" out there producing so many different translations, and denouncing each other's work? Why do they conduct symposiums where heated and oft-times hateful debates rage? Why do they produce endless biblical dictionaries, biblical encyclopedias, biblical commentaries and enough Christian how-it-could-have-happened books to fill a football stadium? Why are there so many Christian denominations—almost a different church on every corner? And why is it that your fellow Christian once burned so-called heretical books (those that questioned the scriptures or church doctrine) and roasted alive the Christians who read them? Well, Jimmy, how about some answers here? The fact is that you so-called men of God are very successful at their business because you live in a Christian society that was born out of the ravages of the Holy Inquisition. Your "holy" lies and superstitions are swallowed whole by people who were inculcated with the superstitions of the Christian bible along with their mother's milk. If you and that army of pulpit-pounders like you had to start from scratch and convince a society thoroughly educated about Christianity's corrupt history and canon, then the Christian faith would be as dead today as are the religions of the ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome!

You continue: "We are told, '...the Septuagint, written in Greek, would have been totally unacceptable by the Orthodox Jews of first century Judea. This is a destructive fact for Christianity because the Septuagint was apparently the translation used in New Testament quotations...' Oh? The Dead Sea Scrolls use the lxx [Septuagint]; were the Qumaranites not orthodox Jews? (Try to say 'no' without begging the question, please.) And as Miller notes: '...it must be remembered that the lxx and mt [Masoretic Text] are not as widely divergent as is commonly supposed:'"

Now get off it, Jimmy. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls three variant Hebrew Bible texts were known: The "proto-masoretic" type (one that was a base for a later canonized text), the type apparently underlying the Septuagint, and the one close to Samaritan Bible. Texts belonging to all three types were found in Qumran as well as texts of types unknown before and texts of mixed types. So which of these is "God's Word" Jimmy? If I read you right you are claiming that the Septuagint was the bible of choice for the first century A.D. Jews. If that is so, then you are saying that Judaism is using the wrong bible, as are Protestants, who shun the Septuagint and use the Masoretic Text for their Old Testament.

Good god, what a mess! I mean, didn't your god have sufficient power to make sure the ancient Judeans preserved the right bible and transmit it to you poor Christians? Isn't it bad enough that he failed to let you know which damned Greek bible to use without confusing the issue with the wrong OT as well? And while we are on the subject of Qumran, the so-called Apocryphal books were found there as well, such as Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) and Tobit. Are these inspired books of God, Jimmy? Did the "Qumrananites" use them as well? Even more, why don't you use these books, since they were once part of the King James Bible (before being dumped in the eighteenth century by the Church of England)?

As to your last note from "Miller" that the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text isn't that divergent, you still don't get it. First of all that's not true, but more importantly we are not dealing with a translation of Gone With the Wind here. This isn't a question about a revelation from Margaret Mitchell to the Old South. We are talking about a book supposedly inspired and transmitted by an all-powerful deity, who claims it is perfect. If it is the book of life, by which we must all live or perish, then it can have no faults, or else it is not the word of a god but the word of a man, which all respectable historians agree is the fact of the matter!

You keep on: "The Hebrew text presupposed by the lxx [the Septuagint] basically represents a tradition which is either close to that of mt [the Masoretic Text] or can easily be explained as a descendant or a source of it. In several individual instances, however, the lxx represents a text that comes close to other sources, viz., certain Hebrew scrolls from Qumran and the Sam. Pent." [Tov, in HI:TCUlxx:188] Meanwhile Philo 'even ascribed the highest level of divine inspiration to the lxx (the Pentateuch only), and called the translators prophets.' Josephus used it, and so did numerous Jewish pseudopigraphical and apocalyptic works, from before the time of Christ. So no one is quoted as saying: 'The New Testament undoubtedly shows a preference for the Septuagint; out of about 350 texts from the Old Testament [cited in the New], 300 favor the Greek version rather than the Hebrew.' Eh? Miller says: Jesus clearly cites the OT 64 times in the Synoptics—matt, mk, luke—(there are many more allusions, of course.). Of these: More than half (32+) AGREE with BOTH the lxx and the mt (simply because the lxx is a GOOD translation of the mt in those cases.) One-fifth of the 64 DIFFER from BOTH the lxx and the mt One-fifth of the 64 AGREE with the mt against the lxx The rest agree with the lxx AGAINST the mt (but we have a couple of verses where we see different versions of the lxx itself! (Ex: Mr 13:25 vs Mr 9.48) (Of course, Jesus spoke Aramaic, mostly, although he would have had conversational knowledge of Greek as well)—so His quotes would likely NOT have been from the lxx to begin with.)"

Read your words again Jimmy! Are you agreeing or not agree that I'm right about the first century Christians, who were Jewish converts, not using the Greek Septuagint? Your last comment about Jesus not quoting from the lxx seems to uphold my point. As to the rest of your rant, what you are admitting is that the so-called original Old Testament is as big a mess as the so-called original of the New Testament. Hell fire Jimmy! You are saying that if one earns a degree in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic then they just might be able to piece together something sensible out of the jumble of OT manuscripts! As for your inference that I'm not using Christian scholarship in my presentation, which you deceptively criticize by stating "so no one is quoted as saying . . .", let me inform your and my readers that my information is from the editors of The Catholic Encyclopedia who tell us this: "The New Testament undoubtedly shows a preference for the Septuagint; out of about 350 texts from the Old Testament [cited in the New], 300 favor the Greek version rather than the Hebrew." (Volume III, p. 271.)

Okay Jimmy Pat. After reading through some of your web page, I perceive that you are not exactly enamored with Catholic scholars. So you'll probably be screaming about my use of Catholic scholarship. But the fact is that, before the sixteenth century your Christian church history is one and the same with Roman Catholicism. Your present faith is an apostate mongrel born out of the Holy Mother Church of Rome, which is why I like going to the people who started it all for answers. And if you want to charge that my information is out of date, then here's a modern Catholic source to back it up: Paul Lamarche's article In The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity, edited by Paul M. Blowers, which was released in 1997 from Notre Dame University: "In what version was the Old Testament used and commented on by early Christians? . . . it is the Septuagint, the Greek translation which, directly or indirectly, was fundamentally for all writings of the early Christian centuries, and even after Jerome it is the text which the Greek Fathers, including the Antiochenes, customarily used."

You see JP, the point I was making in my statement (which came from my second book and was taken out of context on my web page) was that what you now call the New Testament was composed by Church fathers long after the first century A.D. When composing their new bible these "fathers" used the only Old Testament acceptable to them for quotations, which was the Greek Septuagint. I demonstrated that if the NT had been really composed by first century Judean converts, then they would have used a Hebrew version of the Old Testament, or Tanakh—not a heretical Greek version. And your point about Jesus speaking Aramaic and therefore not likely quoting from the Septuagint backs up this assertion. Speaking or that, your point about Aramaic ties you to your Aramaic-promoting Christian brethren who claim that most Christians are using the wrong bible, and that their own historically-complex Aramaic version being the only true New Testament (even though they fight like cats and dogs over which correct ancient Aramaic MSS should be used for their various conflicting editions of their New Testament). Is that your position Jimmy? If so, let me give you a formal introduction to Paul Younan, a self-styled expert on the "original" Aramaic New Testament, who has debated with me in the past.

Again JP, your criticism proves my point that the only avenue open to you is to use the old "my scholars are better than your scholars" argument in your feeble effort to avoid the unanswerable questions raised on my web page. I will be glad to match your Christian scholars for other Christian scholars who disagree with your dogmas, but that is simply spinning wheels in Christian mud. The reason for my references is to demonstrate the contradictory jumble that is the so-called Holy Bible. Where pulpit-pounders like you fall flat is when we get into a scriptural examination. So, when you make the following, smug declaration, it may fare well with your deluded believers, but it won't stand if any of them use their brains and simply read their bibles with an open mind: "Conder clearly knows that he can't handle scholarship, which is no doubt why he wants to 'stick to the Bible,' so that he can offer his decontextualized readings without opposition. Of course that in itself constitutes an admission of defeat by Conder, and so we conclude that he has offered here his terms of surrender. We thank him for that, and if he ever wishes to show up, he knows where we are."

I think you'll agree Jimmy that once one of your readers finally sent over your reply and gave me the chance to answer your ministerial tap-dancing, that I've hardly conceded defeat in the arena of historicity. And yes, I know where you are—you and thousands of other pulpit-pounders selling your dead god on a stick. But I didn't go looking for you. You got miffed by my web page and came after me. So in the future how about just writing to me direct and I'll promise to get a reply back when I'm not busy helping one of your former believers toss his bible into the mouth of a paper shredder?

Oh, and about your criticism of my acceptance of ancient mythology as proof that early Christian missionaries converted pagans to their ranks by adapting pagan myths to Christian dogma: I noticed that you spent no time with this charge other than to pass it off as a "blunder". That's a wise dodge there Jimmy as I have written two rather popular books on that very topic and I have successfully defended the contents of these books on many occasions—some of those defenses being posted on my web page. Here's just one example of Christianity "borrowing" from pagan religions—this one being from Mexico because you specifically criticize me for mentioning the ancient Mexican mysteries: Don DeSolis, a Spanish Christian writer in the eighteenth century, tries to explain away the pagan customs of South America and their counterparts in Christianity: ". . . it seems that the Devil . . . was ambitious to imitate Baptism . . . and even the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, since he introduced among these Barbarians the Confession of Sins . . . and Communion which the priest administered on certain days. They had likewise Jubilees, processions, offerings of incense and other forms of divine worship; Nay, they even gave their Chief Priest the title of Pope in their language:" Satan, ". . . whether with a design to abuse and profane the Sacred Mysteries and Ceremonies by mingling them with his Abominations, is still aspiring to imitate the Most High." (De Solis, Don Antonio. The History of the Conquest of Mexico, translated by Thom. Townsend, 3rd Edition. (London:1753, Volume I, p. 355-6.)

So Jimmy, if you would like to get into specifics about mythology, then I invite you to have at it. We can start with how and why your church abandoned the seventh day Sabbath (which Jesus kept) for first day Sunday worship, or why Christianity adapted the pagan Easter and Christmas beliefs as their own, or abandoned the Old Testament holy days, which God commanded to be kept forever as did Jesus.

In conclusion I want to quote a Christian apologist named Douglas Kutilek, who writes that "The New Testament was inspired by God, and came from the pens of its writers or their amanuenses in infallible form, free from any defect of any sort, including scribal mistakes. However, God in His providence did not chose to protect that infallible original text from alterations and corruptions in the copying and printing process. Scribes and printers made both accidental (usually) and deliberate (occasionally) changes in the Greek text as they copied it. As a result, the surviving manuscript copies of the New Testament differ among themselves in numerous details." (Westcott & Hort vs. Textus Receptus: Which is Superior?, Douglas Kutilek, 5/24/96 URL: http://www.bible-researcher.com/kutilek1.html)

Do you agree with your fellow Christian here, Jimmy? Did God chose not to protect his "original" Greek bible, and thus leave a massive debate raging inside the Christian Church about the correct translation and thus triggering countless different church denominations and countless Christian wars? And may I ask you to tell everyone which translation of the "Holy Bible" you use, and will you declare it error-free? More important do you accept every word of it as God-inspired, and do you strive to follow it? These questions are much more important than the camouflage-dodge of getting into the history of the so-called original Greek New Testament, which I did to help set you on the straight and narrow. The history of the NT canon is incidental to what the bible actually teaches—wouldn't you agree Jimmy Pat?

(If anyone is interested in reading James Patrick Holding's rants, they are located at this URL: http://www.tektonics.org/af/conder01.html Holding's original challenge to Darrell Conder appears in the next article. If anyone would like to read how Farrell Till handled this would-be apostle of the Lord, they can do so here: The Skeptical Review)

© Copyright by Darrell W. Conder, Olympia, Washington, 2005. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this is hereby granted as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and includes this copyright notice along with our URL: www.darrellwconder.com. For other uses, please contact the author through the above web site.

Comment from Darrell W. Conder: Ever notice how Christian apologists go for each other's throats, when one of their own says or writes something that goes against their own brand of theology? (That's why there are so many different Christian churches in the world, and why so many Christians have killed one another in the name of Jesus!) "My scholars are better than yours" is their standard excuse when defending their indefensible mythology. Okay, Mr. Holding, drop your smug "I've got all the answers and this guy's no threat to anyone" arrogance, and let's get to the brass tacks! I will debate you, but we shall stick to the bible, and only to the bible. Let's see how well you fare when you've no place to hide except behind your "holy book" of error and contradiction!