Joe E. Holman has a moving account about his conversion to Christianity and reversal to atheism. The thing that struck me most is how little support he had during his struggle. His fellow preachers just pushed him away.
But when reading his article on Bible contradictions I started wondering. These contradictions are so basic, and his remarks so devoid of study that I wondered how much effort he put into resolving them. Anyway, here a response to each of them. Most of them are pointers to my The author of the SAB answered project.
Mr. Holman makes two assertions:
I'm not sure what apologists he has read, but if he had consulted John Gill (1697 - 1771) he would find that in only one instance the possibility of a copyist error was raised. In all other instances there are perfectly logical reasons for having a different number. And in that single instance we happen to have copies without this error.
The four alleged contradictions and my reply to them:
And note that we have copies in Arabic and Syriac which have the number eighteen in both places.Which may be reconciled by observing, that he might be made and declared king by his father, in the first year of his reign, who reigned eleven years, so that he was eight years old when he began to reign with him, and eighteen when he began to reign alone
Mr. Holman assures us that the following are indeed contradictions. Well, let us have a look if these assertions stand up to scrutiny.
According to Joe E. Holman Luke says
that they were not allowed even a single stave, based upon the Greek
text. And he is right, this would be a clear contradiction with Mark. So let's brush up our Greek. The
Greek word for staff, singular, is rhabdos (ῥάβδος). The plural is
rhabdoi (ῥάβδοι). In Greek, words also have a different ending
depending on its usage, so we need to carefully compare words to see
if we have a plural or not.
There is an excellent Greek testament resource on the web, which
allows us to compare various manuscripts. Let's first have
a look at Matthew 10:10. On the left you see the King James
translation, in the middle the Greek words that differ among
manuscripts, and on the right the manuscript which have these
differences. As one can see, some manuscripts use the singular stave,
others have staves.
Next, let's have
a look at Luke 9:3. Again some manuscripts have the singular, some
have the plural.
So how come that Mr. Holman asserts that the Greek in Luke has a
singular as the
manuscript evidence just provided shows only some to have a
singular. The most likely reason for that is that Mr. Holman uses a
Greek text concocted by the enlightened professors of our enlightened
days. They usually use phrases like based on “the best and
oldest manuscripts” [Ed: snort]. Most translations in our days are
essentially
based the Greek Testament produced by Westcott and Hort in
1881. And that Greek is based on the Codex
Vaticanus, rejected by the producers of Greek Testament editions
during the time of the reformation, and the Codex
Sinaiticus, Greek manuscripts found on a rubbish dump by
Constantin von Tischendorf. It is no surprise to me that these copies
would have internal contradictions.
But the Greek manuscripts used by the reformers, and used by the King
James translators, and known as the Textus Receptus and the Majority
text manuscripts clearly have a plural in Luke: We read
“ῥάβδους” there, the
plural accusative of ῥάβδοι. I kindly suggest that Mr. Holman
bases his Greek opinions on the majority text, the overwhelming number
of manuscripts, which have a plural instead of basing himself upon a
single Greek manuscript rescued from a trash bin.
That Mr. Holman is able to cite various translations which have a
singular in Luke is no surprise as modern translations are almost
exclusively based on the Westcott and Hort text. Again I suggest he
uses a trusted translation that uses the proper Greek manuscripts.
Mr. Holman also addresses the explanation offered at the beginning of this discussion, namely that Jesus says to his disciples that they should take one staff, not two. Mr. Holman writes here:
The claim sometimes used by Christian apologists that Matthew is commanding each person not to take more than one staff is ludicrous and false!
Is it necessary for Jesus tell the apostles that they should only carry one staff a piece? This would be a very stupid lesson — it seems bizarre to imagine someone troubling themselves to carry two staves at any one time! Again, why would they take more than they need?
The objection is somewhat confusing, but let us first establish
that there were two different kind of staves: one for walking, and one
used as a weapon. That staves were used for walking is clear from Mark 6:8 where the disciples were
allowed the use of a stave. That there are also staves used as weapons
is clear from Matthew 26:55 where
Jesus says: “Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and
staves for to take me?” Clearly those staves were not for
walking.
The claim of Mr. Holman seems to be that if you have a single stave,
you can use it both for walking and self-defence. There is no need to
take two. But probably the two looked different. The stave for
self-defence might have been more like a baton, while the one for
walking might have been more a throw-away one, not strong enough to
hit something. I've not been able to unearth much material about
Middle Eastern staves in New Testament times, but Mr. Holman hasn't
given us prove that all staves were identical either.
The last thing I want to comment on is Mr. Holman's claim on shoes and sandals: “The same problem shines out when we consider how "shoes" are listed here as well. Is Jesus telling his disciples not to take an extra pair of shoes (sandals) ...?” It seems that Mr. Holman considers shoes and sandals to be the same thing. They're not. They were not allowed to take shoes, but they were allowed to take sandals. As John Gill comments:
there was a difference between shoes and sandals, as appears from the case of the plucking off the shoe, when a man refused his brother's wife: if the "shoe" was plucked off it was regarded; but if the "sandal", it was not minded: this was the old tradition, though custom went against it. Sandals were made of harder leather than shoes, and sometimes of wood covered with leather, and stuck with nails, to make them more durable; though sometimes of bulrushes, and bark of palm trees, and of cork, which were light to walk with.
Do we understand this to mean that:I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.
So answering Mr. Holman when he says: “What happened to the promise of being given the right words to say before rulers?” Nothing happened to this promise. It was fulfilled. Paul spoke the right words.Therefore, subscribing to Augustine, I do not doubt but that this is a taunting excuse. Neither doth that any whit hinder, because plain speech becometh the ministers of the word. For seeing there be two sorts of ironies, one which is covered with subtilty and means to deceive, another which doth so figuratively note out the thing which is in hand, that it doth prick sorer; in this second, there is nothing which doth not well beseem the servants of Christ. Therefore, this is the meaning of the words, Brethren, I acknowledge nothing in this man which belongeth to the priest.
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