Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Holden's Not Happy



Joseph Holden of Veritas Evangelical Seminary has written a long piece about genre criticism. Well, supposedly, it's about genre criticism. Most of the post actually consists of just saying "We don't like the way that our opponents speak about us and they should act better!" This is included in what has to be one of the longest paragraphs ever in the English language.

Noteworthy also is that Holden takes notice of a piece I wrote on this blog. This means Holden has made the mistake that Geisler didn't, which is linking to my own work on this topic. Well for those who are here because they found that thanks to Holden, I'd like to introduce you to everything I've written on the topic which can be found here.

Holden begins his piece with this.

"Those within the critically-trained evangelical NT scholarly guild, I would assume, consider their ability to handle, teach, write, research, and discuss Scripture, a blessing given to them by God. Most, if not all, would agree they are also responsible to God and to those they interact with to imitate the character of Christ in love, especially to our own Christian brothers and sisters no matter what disagreements they have."

Which got me suspicious right from the start. It's a buttering up in order to knock someone down. Of course the ability to study the Scriptures and examine them is a gift from God, but let us remember, that we are to act in love no matter what disagreements we have. Let's all remember those acts of love that are to be done.

What are they?

Giving pressure to someone so that they will lose their livelihood at their job.
Calling people behind the scenes to get them uninvited at conferences.
Passing petitions around behind their back in order to have them lose their reputation.
Ban and delete any challenges that come your way to said authority.

We could go on, but apparently, all of these things are okay to do in Christian love! These are just fine! What is not fine?

Actually writing a defense when these actions are done.
Writing satires that show the absurdity of a position.
Making YouTube videos that show the absurdity of a position.

Dang it! If only we'd all just put pressure on people to fire others and have them banned from conferences, we'd still be acting in Christian love!

Or is this one of the greatest examples of the pot calling the kettle black?

"One does not have to be a scholar to be aware of the susceptibility within the academy to be puffed up with pride and forget that the Word of God must guide our reason and interactions with others. To fall short of these standards is both unscholarly, unnecessary, and reveals little respect for the crucial issues pertaining to God’s Word. There is no place for a lack of respect, mockery, or the cavalier handling of various topics discussed within inerrancy despite what we think about views we deem as unpersuasive."

Now there is a note after this and what does it link to? The dangerous heresy of Michael Bird! One wonders what Holden would have said to Isaiah when he joked about a man building an idol and making sure it doesn't topple over. What would he said to Elijah about what he said about the prophets on Mt. Carmel? What would he have said to Jesus in Matthew 23? What would he say to Paul about wanting the circumcision crowd to go the whole way and emasculate themselves in Galatians 5?

It looks like Holden has bought into an idea of love as sentiment, when it is not. He has actually bought into an idea that is foreign to the text and imposed it on the text. This is the danger of removing it from the mind of the author. After all, the words can mean most anything then and you can superimpose your culture on the culture of the text and totally miss the meaning of what is said.

And if Holden wants to say there is a lack of respect, he needs to remember that people have indeed lost respect for Geisler and company and why is that? Because Mike Licona and Craig Blomberg are just awesome? No. That's irrelevant to the fact. They've lost it because they've seen the way Geisler has handled himself and they don't want any part of it.

There is also no reply to what Bird said. I happen to agree with Bird in fact. Bird made an honest assessment of the information contained in Blomberg's book and it's just not liked. This is like a bully on the playground who steals the toys from all the other children and doesn't like it when someone comes and outsmarts him and takes away the toys that he stole.

"The Scriptures deserve our best. But what should we expect from critical evangelicals that deny historical affirmations presented in Scripture and/or view historical narrative in the Gospels as candidates for fiction? Perhaps I should adjust my expectations and not expect critics to handle issues pertaining to the Scriptures in a manner likened to those who actually believe the biblical author’s expressed intentions.  Though this adjustment may be necessary when dealing with unbelieving critics, it should not dominate the landscape in this case since believers are involved."

Ah. This has just got rich. Since there are people who apparently deny the historicity of the Bible, then we should not be surprised that their character is not in accordance with the Bible. Once again, getting someone disinvited to speak at conferences and having petitions going on behind one's back? This is all well and good! This is within the bounds of how people who disagree should act! Making jokes and writing comedy pieces? Hideous villains! How unchristlike you are!

And again, the historical narrative is not being called into question. What is being called into question is whether some parts should be read as narrative or not. You don't make the case that they are by asserting that they are. You make it by giving an argument why from the same methodology.

For instance, I am going to be doing my Master's research on the Matthew 27 account and the resurrection of the saints. Now if Mike Licona reads my work and finds it persuasive, and my view turns out to be that I think he's wrong, here's what will happen. Mike will change his mind. That's what happens when you follow the evidence where it leads. That is how you change someone's mind. You don't change it by saying "If you don't agree with me, I won't let you play in my sandbox any more."

"Yet despite identifying with evangelical traditions, stereotypes, impugning motives, demeaning comments, and personal attacks are offered without hesitation. For example, see Blomberg’s descriptions of ICBI inerrantists who are likened to the far right and far left of “Nazism,” “Communism,” describing them as “far right,” “extreme,” and should “avoid them like the plague,” they “hindered genuine scholarship among evangelicals,” “overly conservative,” “hyperconservative,” “ultraconservative,” and do “disservice” to the gospel in CWSBB, 7-8, 11, 120, 125, 141-45, 214, 217."

Anyone who read Blomberg's book would find this hysterical. Blomberg is using an analogical argument and for what its worth, I for the most part agree. Avoid extremes. Note also that Blomberg points out misrepresentations made by Geisler and Farnell that are not acknowledged in this piece. Note that he points out how Robert Thomas said that he was experiencing a "satanic blindness." That's apparently okay.

"Obviously, this is an attempt to standardize his own critical views as “mainstream” by radicalizing and polarizing the opposition."

Why is it that Blomberg is the one guilty? We could just as well say Geisler and Holden are guilty of this. After all, the view that we can't know the authorial intent of an author is not what has been seen as mainstream. Note also the well poisoning by saying that Blomberg's views are critical.

Blomberg in fact has done much to defend the Inerrancy of Scripture including writing on the historical reliability of the Gospels and his belief in Inerrancy stems from the fact that he did the historical study on the Gospels, the kind that people like Holden seem to want to avoid.

" In addition, Blomberg offers an angry and bizarre satirical rant against those critical of his view, asserting that Geisler, a former ICBI framer and staunch defender of inerrancy, “Denies…ICBI Inerrancy!” and should be cancelled from speaking engagements."

And here, Holden has made the mistake. He has shown that my work has been noticed by him. Well it was never linked to before, but now we can say it has been so thank you very much. We eagerly anticipate since it has been shown that we are in the orbit how a response will come to the open challenge, you know, the one that has been regularly denied by Geisler et al.

I also do not think Blomberg has any anger in this rant at all. What Holden and people like him do not realize is that by now, what he is defending has just come across for the most part as silly. Of course, Holden will see this as saying Inerrancy is silly. It is not. What is bizarre is this view that wants to avoid any real interaction with NT scholarship.

"Bird is not exempt from these personal attacks either, he says Geisler is the “villain,” and his views are “extreme” and “to the right of Attila the Hun,” “not a…pleasant chap,” and remarks Geisler “has never found an institution worthy of him.”

Keep in mind, this is not acceptable. All the other behaviors mentioned above? Entirely acceptable! Note to people like Holden, we'll think you have a case here if we start seeing our opponents practice what they preach. Geisler went public first going all out against Mike Licona and then didn't like it when he realized all the opposition he unleashed.

"Licona has his share of doozies as well (e.g., Geisler and company are theological bullies, satirical mockeries of Geisler in cartoon form, etc)."

Something seems to escape Holden here. Is Geisler being a bully? Well geez. Maybe that is the case. Maybe people have been looking at the behavior and saying "Geisler is being a bully." Let's suppose for the sake of argument even that that's wrong. That it's even being said should raise up some concern. Why is it so many people who used to respect Geisler now want nothing to do with him? Could it be because of actions in this whole crusade?

But apparently, making a satire about not having Geisler speak at your conferences for denying inerrancy is unacceptable. Actually doing that in reality as Geisler has done to his opponents is entirely acceptable.

"There is no reason why critical NT interpreters cannot be cordial in fostering an atmosphere of discovery rather than elevating fraternity above orthodoxy. Though ad hominem can be an effective way to make an orthodox view look “radical,” it is actually Bird, Blomberg, and Licona’s view of Scripture that are alien to the church’s view of Scripture from its beginning and to the ICBI definition."

I'll give you a hint who the first person was who was not cordial in this and his initials are N and G. Yet with this last sentence, it makes one wonder if Holden and others think when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, that He also included all the statements in ICBI. ICBI has been lifted up as the standard definition of Inerrancy of the church historically. It is a wonder how this could be known without knowing authorial intent of the speakers of the past, but oh well. Could it be instead that a view that wants to divorce the text from its social context and culture is actually the one that is aberrant.

Now rather than go through all of this, let's skip down to get to some real meat. Note that in all of this so far, not one thing has really been said about the subject matter of the title. From ICBI we get

"We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual."

And the question then is "What presents itself as factual?" For instance, the temptation narratives present themselves as factual accounts. How did they happen? Was Jesus first tempted to jump from the temple or was he first tempted to worship the devil? OT narrative accounts of the Israelites totally destroying the Amalekites then have just a few chapters later the Amalekites showing up again to fight. This has been the problem with interpreting the texts in a literalistic fashion. (Interestingly, according to Holly Ordway who is an expert on literature at HBU, the word literal really means "according to the intent of the author.")

"What is more, Article XVIII rejects “the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching…” "

And once again, the mistake is made that you cannot dehistoricize a text that was never meant to be historical to begin with. If the case is made that it is not to be read as historical, one needs to make an argument why it is wrong by showing the flaws in the opponent's argument. One does not do so by just saying "Well they're wrong!"

"Any attempt to arrive at the biblical author’s unexpressed intentions to dehistoricize his expressed intentions through extra-biblical literature is guess work. The biblical author’s unexpressed intentions are lost to us at his death, so nothing short of a séance will suffice in securing unexpressed intent!"

And insofar as it goes, this is correct. We do have to guess. We often have to guess what is meant when we have the author of a piece right there. This includes all forms of language. How many guys out looking for a lady have asked their friends the question "Is that girl flirting with me?" just by body language? How many times has a husband or wife expected their spouse to "get the message" without saying something explicitly?

Could it be Holden's problem is he wants absolute 100% security?

Well if that's what he wants, he won't get it.

What people do in this case is they make a strong case and seek to not grant 100% certainty, but seek to remove reasonable doubt. This is the standard in court cases in our country. You can still make a strong case and go with reasonable likelihood.

And what if we say that we are certain all these texts have to be taken literalistically? What happens then when something like Galileo happens? The text was often being interpreted in a literalistic way? What was most persuasive in showing us that was wrong? Extra-Biblical information. Would that be seen as dehistoricizing the text?

"Similarity in genre does not secure our knowledge of unexpressed authorial intent no matter how “similar” it is to the Gospels, since we would still be left without knowing whether the biblical author’s intent was the same as the pagan author’s intent.  Anything else is pure speculation. This method elevates what the author intended to say over and above what he did actually say."

But in fact, if Geisler and Holden say we have to take these as historical, then upon what grounds will they deny that other accounts are not to be taken as historical? Do they take the miracles of Apollonius in the same way? Do they take the events at the death of Caesar and others the same way? How do they get to the Biblical text being the right one without begging the question?

Also, it is not pure speculation. I suspect Holden thinks this because he has not really interacted with NT scholarship. It is reasonable assumptions made based on the evidence.

We could go on with this, but there would just be more of the same. What we see going on with Holden is just paranoia and panic. What is truly fearful to me is not that some would use historical criticism to argue against the text. That will happen regardless. What is fearful to me is evangelicals being frightened at that thought? Why? Will the Bible not stand up? For me, I can say throw at the text all the tests that you want to. If our scholarship is done rightly and honestly then in the end, if the text is inerrant, it will come out unscathed.

Now we'll just sit back and wait to see if Geisler will respond to the challenges presented or just keep pushing the panic button.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Holden's piece can be found here

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

It Finally Happened

From the desk of Craig Blomberg, we have this expose on the latest person to deny Inerrancy. Be on guard against this individual!

IT FINALLY HAPPENED—NORMAN GEISLER DENIES ETS AND ICBI INERRANCY!
THE SHOCKING EXPOSÉ

In a stunning new development yesterday, April 25, 2014, Dr. Norman Geisler, for years the world’s leading proponent of the full, final, complete, absolute, and unqualified inerrancy of the Bible according to the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy’s Chicago Statement created such a narrow definition of inerrancy that he denied it himself!

It was perhaps inevitable.  For years Geisler had been making the noose tighter and tighter.  Once an active member of the Evangelical Theological Society, he spearheaded a movement to get Robert Gundry ousted for his redaction-critical commentary on Matthew.  This happened despite no less a conservative than D. A. Carson having written that the ETS’s short one-clause doctrinal statement on inerrancy was inadequate for the task.  Only by seeking to stack the deck with all kinds of members coming to the business meeting at which Gundry’s membership was voted on who had not been present for or participated in the society’s discussions of Gundry’s positions was the 2/3 majority attained to ask Gundry to resign.

Next Geisler went after Murray Harris, long-time staunch supporter of the resurrection of Jesus.  What was Harris’s crime?  He strongly affirmed the bodily resurrection of our Lord.  He just happened to believe that the resurrection appearances between Jesus’ death and exaltation were appearances from heaven.  In other words, Jesus wasn’t hiding somewhere on earth in between his appearances during those 40-days, he was actually already in heaven.  The case can be debated but Geisler spent several years trying in vain to get the Evangelical Free Church to defrock Harris.  An ETS-trio of leading systematic theologians—Roger Nicole, Millard Erickson and Bruce Demarest—exonerated Harris of anything that could be considered counter to inerrancy, evangelicalism or the Christian faith, but Geisler still managed to publish a book on The Battle for the Resurrection that had so many factual misrepresentations of Harris that Harris needed a lengthy appendix in his subsequent work, From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament to list and correct them.

Next came the open theists.  When the ETS failed to get the 2/3 majority needed to ask John Sanders to resign and got only a 1/3 vote to get Clark Pinnock to resign, Norman Geisler resigned instead, hoping to lead a mass exodus in protest against the “encroaching liberalism” of the ETS.  The exodus utterly failed to materialize so Geisler began speaking as he traveled of the organization as the Formerly Evangelical Theological Society.

Then there was Darrell Bock, an amazing conservative evangelical inerrantist scholar with a distinguished career of teaching at Dallas Seminary, that “bastion of liberalism”!  Bock’s heresy?  He co-edited the volume of the papers produced by the Institute of Biblical Research’s Historical Jesus study group with Bob Webb, and Bob in his introductory articles in the volume made some statements that were incompatible with ICBI inerrancy.  But the volume never intended to represent ICBI or even ETS, and Darrell did not make the statements, Bob did.  But in Geisler’s Inerrancy for a New Generation (which is really inerrancy unchanged from an old generation), Bock and Webb are repeatedly grouped together as if Bock agreed with everything Webb wrote by himself!

More recently, Mike Licona’s views became horrid and dangerous in Geisler’s eyes.  Formerly an adjunct professor Southern Evangelical Seminary, Mike had to leave when he wrote a 700+ page defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, brilliantly employing new historiographical arguments in its defense.  What on earth, then, was his heresy?  In just three or four pages, Licona asked the question (he didn’t even answer it!)—might it be possible that the little segment in Matthew 27:52b-53, found in no other Gospel, about the resurrection of certain unspecified saints who appeared to people in Jerusalem, was an apocalyptic symbol not meant to be taken literally?  Licona didn’t know for sure, but thought the question worth asking, and for this he has been the ongoing subject of Geisler’s polemic to this very day.

Finally, Geisler attacked Craig Blomberg.  Along with David Farnell, Geisler wrote an article posted on-line about how Blomberg had now denied inerrancy and it was time to expose him to the world.  A study by Blomberg, published in the mid-1980s in two different forms, including in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, had defended the historical reliability of the miracles in the Gospels, including some of the most puzzling ones that many scholars had questioned.  But Blomberg had the audacity to tuck in a couple of paragraphs commenting on Matthew 17:27, which reads να δ μ σκανδαλσωμεν ατος, πορευθες ες θλασσαν βλε γκιστρον κα τν ναβντα πρτον χθν ρον, καὶ ἀνοξας τ στμα ατο ερσεις στατρα· κενον λαβν δς ατος ντὶ ἐμο κα σο (UBS Greek New Testament).

A woodenly literal translation of this verse would be:  “but in order that we not scandalize them, having gone to the sea, throw a hook and take the first fish coming up, and having opened its mouth you will find a stater.  Having taken that, give to them for me and you.”  As is characteristic of Matthew’s style, the verses combines several aorist participles of attendant circumstances with imperative mood verbs that are all most smoothly translated as commands.  The ESV, for example, translates the most relevant part of this verse as:  “go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel.”  To be more consistent, though it would be less stylistically elegant, it should have said, “go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up and open its mouth and you will find a shekel.”  In other words, there are four participles or imperatives here that give four consecutive commands:  “Go,” “cast,”  “take,” and “open.”  Then there is one future-tense prediction:  “you will find.”

Functionally, the commands serve as conditions for the prophecy.  Peter cannot find the coin in the fish’s mouth unless he opens it.  He cannot open the fish’s mouth unless he takes it off his hook.  He cannot take it off his hook unless he casts his line into the lake to begin with.  And he cannot begin to fish unless he goes to the lake in the first place.

In short, we are never told whether or not Peter obeyed any or all of these four commands from Christ.  The grammatical form of this verse is not that of a narrative or an account.  Matthew does not write that Jesus said to Peter, “Come, let’s go down to the lake and go fishing.  So Peter and Jesus went to the shore and Peter cast his line (or dangled his hook over the side of his boat).  Soon a fish began to nibble at the bait.  They hauled it in and Peter pried open its mouth.  Lo and behold there was a shekel, just what the two men needed to pay the temple tax for both of them together.”

It is, of course, quite possible that this is exactly what happened.  But the text never says that’s what happened.  Blomberg finally had an opportunity to point this out directly to Geisler yesterday in a thread on a blog by Joseph Holden, President of Veritas Seminary.  Here are the exact words of Geisler’s response:  “If the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, then we do not have to wait for a fulfillment to know it is true. Further, the traditional view is that the Gospel narrative is historical, and the story in Matthew 17 about the command to catch the fish is part of that record. Finally, either Jesus did or did not command Peter to go catch the fish. If he did not, then the Bible is not completely inerrant. There is no third alternative.”

Let’s analyze each of these statements.  (1) Do we have to wait for a fulfillment of a prophecy to know whether or not it is true?  How about Jonah 3:4—“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown”?  But it wasn’t.  Why not?  Because there was an implied condition based on the whole purpose of Jonah’s preaching—to get people to repent.  If they didn’t repent, Nineveh would be overthrown.  In Matthew 17:27 there are four conditions:  Peter has to go to the lake, he has to throw in a hook, he has to take the first fish, and he has to open its mouth.  The only way Geisler can know that all these four conditions were fulfilled is if he is relying on a version of Scripture that says Peter did precisely those four things.  But textual criticism has shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is not what the autographs said.  Geisler is therefore in violation of the ETS clause on inerrancy:  “the Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and therefore is inerrant in the autographs.”  Geisler’s view is based on knowledge he claims to have, which not found in the Bible alone and certainly not in the autographs, and so he has denied the ETS doctrine of inerrancy.

(2) It is the traditional view that this is historical.  Here is a strange statement indeed for a Protestant to make.  Either one bases one’s views on what is actually in Scripture or one bases one’s views on what is in tradition.  There is no third alternative.  But tradition is different from “the Bible alone,” so again Geisler has denied the ETS clause.

(3) We must affirm that Jesus commanded Peter to go catch the fish.  Agreed—and this is irrelevant to the issue.  Blomberg never claimed that Jesus didn’t give the command.  The question is what did Peter do?

But it gets worse.  The ICBI statement is much more extensive than the ETS doctrinal statement.  Its eighteenth article begins, “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis.”  That is exactly what Blomberg has done.  Careful attention to the grammar of Matthew 17:27, shows four commands followed by a promise.  The commands must be obeyed in order for the promise to be fulfilled.  The text fails to state whether any of the commands were obeyed.  So by insisting he knows that they were, Geisler has denied the ICBI doctrine of inerrancy.  He has changed the inspired text to turn it into five prophecies:  “You will go to the lake, you will throw in your hook, you will catch a fish, and you will find in its mouth.”

Please note:  not a shred of this post is based on the controversial method known as genre criticism—of identifying the literary form of a portion of a document and interpreting it according to the rules for interpreting that form.  It would be scandalous, for example, to note that all the other miracles referred to in the Gospels are in the literary form of a historical narrative and as a result to treat them as if they actually happened.  So we are not relying on some dubious identification of Matthew 17:27 with some literary form found outside the Bible like a law, a psalm, a proverb, a creed, a virtue list or vice list, and so on.  Because these can be found outside the Bible, they should never be used to help identify the literary form of any part of the inspired text of Scripture.  No, we are sticking strictly to the grammatico-historical method, relying entirely on the grammatical forms of the verbs in this verse.

In light of Dr. Geisler’s stunning denials, published on the internet at defendinginerrancy.net as seen in his comments to objections, schools, churches and organizations beware.  If you want to remain faithful to inerrancy as understood by the ETS and ICBI, you will not allow Dr. Geisler to teach for you.  You will cancel speaking engagements that you have scheduled for him, just as he sought to do for all those he decided had denied inerrancy but refused to admit it.*


*People with Dr. Geisler’s views have very little appreciation for literary forms, genres and their functions.  So, although it seems pedantic to spell it out, the form or genre of the above post is satire or parody and not to be taken literally.  But if you have to be told this, you probably shouldn’t try teaching the Bible anywhere until you’ve had a good course in hermeneutics or principles of biblical interpretation.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Challenge Denied

Norman Geisler at DefendingInerrancy.net has an article on how ICBI is not for the birds. One great aspect he has about a web site he runs is unlike other blogs ran by others, he can control the content. Now of course, he controls what he writes and puts up there which is well and good. Every web site owner has that, but he also has the great benefit of deleting comments that he doesn't like!

On September 12th, 2011, my ministry partner, J.P. Holding put up this challenge to Geisler on his blog.

http://tektonticker.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-challenge-to-norman-geisler.html

My friend, Greg Masone, put the challenge up on Geisler's Facebook page to see if Geisler would respond to it.

Geisler chose to respond to Greg. He deleted the post and had Greg banned from the page.

Now that defendinginerrancy.net is up, we thought we'd try and see what would happen. J.P. Holding and myself both posted on ICBI Inerrancy is not for the Birds.

First, JPH posted.


Did you not see that on the blog page itself? Go take a look here and surely you'll find it.

That's funny. It's not there.

Okay. Well I went and posted the challenge as well.


And well, wouldn't you know it? That's not there either.

I have also been informed that Carlos Bovell who is posting there has had his comments deleted as well.

So why is it that Geisler is so resisting challenges to his position and determining who can and cannot speak at his site?

Could it be that he doesn't think he can win the challenge to the position he's staked his claim on?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Friday, April 25, 2014

For the past few years, Norman Geisler has been on a quest to stamp out anyone who is violating what he sees as ICBI Inerrancy. This has included going after the reputation and livelihood of godly men who have a passion for Jesus. He has now written a book on this called "The Jesus Quest: The Danger From Within" and has set up a website called DefendingInerrancy.net.

One of the first people who Geisler went after with this was my father-in-law, Michael Licona, and at that point I knew I could not stand idly by and I saw firsthand how dangerous Geisler's view is to evangelicalism. I had benefitted greatly from what Licona had said about biblical history and saw in Geisler's approach an Inerrancy that does not want to use historical scholarship on the Bible. I find this a dangerous view. If we believe the Scripture to be from God, then surely it can survive scrutiny. Instead of showing Licona to be wrong with an approach from historical scholarship, the claim of Inerrancy was waved and that was said to be enough. Licona wrote a massive work defending the resurrection and his reward was to be bullied.

Now Craig Blomberg has been on the list and recently an article was written against Michael Bird as well. Who all is next? Geisler has also adamantly refused challenges to his viewpoint. I even posted on his web site of defendinginerrancy a challenge from my ministry partner, J.P. Holding of Tektonics. My comment was never approved.

This is a place where we will allow people to comment however and we will take on questions. For those who are wondering about the methodologies of scholarship, please come here and ask the questions. Challenge us! We welcome it! Ask us why we do what we do, but be prepared to listen as much as to question. If we are wrong in our approach, show it. Don't just assert it. Yet if you are wrong in disagreement, do you not want to know it?

Note also that because one disagrees with Geisler, it does not mean one is not an inerrantist. Many Christian scholars today are, but they are not for reading the Scripture with the modernistic viewpoint Geisler forces on it.

If you want to discuss scholarship and Inerrancy, welcome aboard. This is the place for you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters