[This old blog post has been restored thanks to the Internet Archive. Unfortunately, the formatting is a little wonky and the linked references no longer work.]
I was delighted to see that a Christian apologist named J. P. Holding responded to some of my writing on his website. I’ve been familiar with Holding’s website since I was in college, and I interacted with some of his work directly in my book Politely Rejecting the Bible, so the experience of seeing him now critically tearing into my writing is nothing short of surreal. I only wish that he would have responded without being so contemptuous.
The topic
Holding takes me to task because in my book I express some mild reservations about his interpretation of Matthew 27:3-5, where Judas Iscariot feels overwhelmed with guilt for betraying Jesus and, according to the story, “he went and hanged himself.” This passage appears to conflict with Acts 1:18, where Judas dies by falling headlong in a field. A skeptic of the Bible’s inerrancy might take this as a clear contradiction. But as I argue in the book, proving a contradiction here is difficult because Christians have appealed to three different theories to resolve the discrepancy.
One of the theories I discuss comes from a book that Holding co-authored with Nick Peters (who is also reviewing my book on his website) called Defining Inerrancy. According to this theory, Matthew is employing a device called “typology” and in doing so is intentionally drawing a comparison between Judas Iscariot and a man from the Old Testament named Ahithophel, who betrayed King David.
When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order, and hanged himself; he died and was buried in the tomb of his father. (2 Samuel 17:23)
Holding’s argument is that Matthew is not offering a literal description of Judas’ death. He says:
My thesis is that a reader of Matthew would recognize the allusion and understand this to literally mean: So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he died a death worthy of that traitor Ahithophel.
I discuss this argument in a chapter talking about different approaches that evangelical Christians take to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. It is part of a section where I give examples of apparent contradictions in the Bible that, in my opinion, do not actually provide useful evidence against the doctrine. This point seems to have been lost on Holding, so I will say it again: I do not present this issue as an argument against inerrancy or as a bona fide Bible contradiction.
My response in the book
In discussing Holding’s argument, I do express some personal reservations about Holding’s theory. It is not meant to be a decisive refutation, or even a full discussion, but rather just to present some of my concerns with the theory. Here is what I say:
One issue I see with a typological reading of Matthew’s account is that it is not incompatible with the idea that Judas literally hanged himself. Even if we suppose that the author of Matthew saw a connection between Ahithophel and Judas, it is entirely possible that their similar manners of death were part of the reason that the author made this connection in the first place. . . .
The problem here is that the story of Ahithophel never says anything at all about his grief or remorse. Holding and Peters are reading that detail into the story.
This means that, if Judas did not literally hang himself, then the author of Matthew would have had to connect Judas’ death to the story of Ahithophel purely on the basis that they were both traitors who died. It seems just as easy to believe that the author of Matthew really thought Judas had hanged himself and simply reported the event.
Politely Rejecting the Bible pp. 49-50
I point out that the story in 2 Samuel never mentions Ahithophel’s grief, and so for the typological interpretation to work, the author of Matthew would have “had to connect” Judas’ death to the story of Ahithophel on other grounds. This, I now think, was worded too strongly. Although Holding’s response is needlessly mean-spirited, he basically suggests that Matthew could have inferred Ahithophel’s grief based on the fact that he committed suicide. Sarcasm aside, I agree with him. But I think Holding is still missing something important here, so I’ll try to explain it briefly.
Discontinuity between Ahithophel and Judas
When trying to interpret any piece of writing, it is important to try to take stock of what a text says and what it does not say, because sometimes our presuppositions lead us to “see” certain things in the text that aren’t really there. Once we do this, we may find that the context does justify us reading certain things into the text. So to return to the case with Ahithophel, the story does not mention grief, but by Holding’s assessment, once we understand the nuances of an honor-shame society, it is entirely appropriate to read grief into his actions.
To avoid further misunderstanding, let me say here that I think Holding’s reading is correct, but he overstates his own point by engaging in over-the-top mockery because, since I suggested that there might be a factor other than grief at play in the story of Ahithophel, Holding creates a ridiculous caricature of my view where someone commits suicide as an act of celebration. Obviously this is not the point I was trying to make.
Subtleties of ancient honor-shame culture aside, there really are other reasons besides grief for why a person might commit suicide, including panic, military strategy, and mental health issues. And of course, these reasons need not be mutually exclusive. Without Holding’s honor-shame lens, one might think, for instance, that panic could have played a role in Ahithophel’s demise. But since I think Holding’s reading of that story is probably correct, we don’t need to fixate on that.
One further comment from Holding will help identify the point I want to make:
The reader will note that while I did say “grief,” contrrary [sic] to Kapr, I did NOT say ‘remorse” — and that was for for a very good reason. However, the honor-shame aspects are likely beyond Kapr’s limited knowledge obtained from Pic N’ Save Bible Seminary. Kapr added “remorse” to my words and meaning because his seminary education was deficient when it came to matters of socio-cultural factors.
I don’t understand why Holding resorts to such aggressive ad hominem attacks (nor can I possibly fathom how this serves his apologetics ministry), but let’s put that to the side. I freely admit that I am not well-versed in the nuances of honor-shame culture, and I’m glad to have the honor-shame element as additional context. I equated grief with remorse because in the context of betraying someone, grief for one’s actions, as opposed to grief over one’s plans falling apart, just is remorse by the way we normally use the words. Remorse may not make sense as a factor in the Ahithophel story once one applies the honor-shame lens, but remorse is an important factor in the case of Judas Iscariot. Judas “repents” of his action upon seeing that Jesus is going to be condemned to die, and he says, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:3-4). Even with Holding’s own assessment, then, there seems to be an important discontinuity between Ahithophel’s suicide and Judas’.
Holding’s Main Mistakes
In his efforts to demean my academic background due to a misunderstanding over a relatively minor issue, it seems that Holding has completely misconstrued my larger point—not a good look for someone who is gleefully mocking other people for their deficient knowledge. Holding seems to think (1) that I was trying to offer a full refutation of his position and (2) that I see the divergent records of Judas’ suicide as a problem for biblical inerrancy. These are both incorrect.
Regarding (1): The discussion was simply meant to offer some thoughts on one potential issue, because I happen to think it’s an interesting theory, and in my book I end my discussion of the issue by pointing out that, in spite of my reservations, it is a topic of serious scholarly discussion. Why Holding ignored this comment completely I cannot say. But if I thought Holding’s theory was better supported by evidence I’d be happy to embrace it. I am quite open to the possibility that there is a connection between the story of Ahithophel and Matthew’s story about Judas. The author of Matthew does have a habit of creating narrative elements based on scripture rather than history (Matthew’s birth narrative is filled with examples). I am just not persuaded that this is necessarily the best interpretation of Matthew’s description of Judas’ death. As Holding notes, even Audrey Conrad, upon whose work Holding’s argument is based, is hesitant to draw any strong conclusions. So my position could be described as agnosticism rather than denial, and here I seem to be in good company.
I am also not confident that Holding’s reading of Matthew would have been so evident to Matthew’s original audience. One of my main reasons for doubting this is that I am not aware of anyone in the early church who interpreted it this way. If anyone did, I would sincerely love to know! But Holding does not mention any such evidence, and I have not been able to find any myself. If Matthew’s allusion to Ahithophel is really so evident, it would be hard to understand why no one in the early church picked up on it. To be clear: This is not a refutation of Holding’s position. But I do see it as a problem.
The bigger mistake that Holding is making here is with (2), where he repeatedly reveals his strange assumption that I am trying to “force” a contradiction between Matthew’s account and the account found in Acts.
Kapr was apparently gobsmacked by this contextualized interpretation, and he does his best to rescue a liteal [sic] reading, as though he were still a fundamentalist (and he apparently is).
I say it’s strange because, in the section of my book where I discuss this passage, my whole point is to explain to the reader why this particular issue does not really provide us with a clear case of contradiction. There are multiple Christian theories for resolving the tension, and even though I don’t find any of them to be terribly convincing, I also see no way to disprove any of them. So my point, contrary to what Holding suggests, is precisely that cases like these make it clear that finding contradictions in the Bible is not as simple and straightforward as so many skeptics seem to think it is. That I state this point quite emphatically, and elaborate on it at length (even chastising a popular atheist writer for his handling of a similar issue!), gives me the impression that perhaps Holding did not read my comments about this passage in their full context (which strikes me as a bit funny given the weight he places on “contextualized” interpretations).
I should mention that I do explore a different contradiction related to this Bible passage later in the book, and I engage with Holding directly in that discussion as well. In that case, I do think there is a real, undeniable contradiction, and I find Holding’s own view to be impossible to take seriously. So I am eager to see if Holding will respond to that. If he does, is it too much to hope for a civil dialogue?
Fundamentalism
Holding accuses me repeatedly of still being a fundamentalist in my thinking (Peters does this too on his website). Let’s just be clear that interpreting a Bible passage literally does not automatically make someone a fundamentalist. Holding and I would presumably both take the Bible literally when it tells us that Jesus died on a cross, but this does not make either of us a fundamentalist. Since most Christians, as far as I’m aware, interpret Matthew’s comments about Judas’ manner of death literally, the charge of fundamentalism here is confusing.
The author professes to be a “former seminarian” but in the end his self-descriptions of agony over interpretation indicates someone unable to reconcile Geilserian [sic] fundamentalism with reality.
I believe the comment about (I’m assuming) “Geislerian fundamentalism” is a reference to Norm Geisler, a famous evangelical defender of the Bible’s inerrancy, or at least one version of it. Geisler tended to embrace staunchly literal interpretations of the Bible’s narratives, to the point of publicly condemning other conservative evangelical scholars if they advocated for less literal readings. From what I understand, he alienated a lot of people. I touch on this in my book, particularly in regard to the controversy involving Mike Licona. I also say quite a bit about fundamentalism and the sometimes strikingly different ways in which evangelicals approach the doctrine of inerrancy. I even draw from categories defined in Holding and Peters’ book (see my discussion of traditionalist vs contextualist approaches to inerrancy on pp. 58-61).
That’s why this criticism is so confusing. I spend so much time in Part I of the book trying to add nuance to the discussion, explaining why inerrancy is not a simple, cut-and-dried issue that can be refuted by citing a couple apparent Bible contradictions and calling it a day. In particular, some contradictions turn out to be impossible to prove, and some passages can be given plausible non-literal readings. So to have the charge of fundamentalist thinking thrown at me in the middle of a discussion where I am trying to explain all this is truly bizarre. Again, it seems as if Holding did not pay much attention to the context in which I talked about his theory.
Ad Hominem Attacks
While I’m grateful for any dialogue about my actual arguments, it is clear that Holding revels in over-the-top, vicious ad hominem attacks. However, some of his comments along these lines reveal a significant blind spot in his own worldview.
I found out his degree was a D. Min. from New Brunswick Theological Seminary; for those who have not seen it before, I consider a D. Min to be fairly useful when it comes to academic credibility, provided your Master’s thesis has a title something like, “Why Goku Yells So Loud: The Kamehameha Wave as an Expression of Diversity in Anime.”
I’m flattered that Holding thinks I have a doctoral degree, but I don’t. I’m afraid I’m even less credentialed than he gives me credit for, because all I have is a Master of Divinity. I make no pretensions to being a scholar, but so what? I’m engaging with the views of various Christian scholars as carefully and critically as I can. Ultimately my arguments will have to stand or fall by their own merits. If he wants to call my “academic credibility” into question that’s fine, but as I am quite open about my educational background, I’m not sure what the issue is.
One concern I have here, though, is that Holding’s comments about “academic credibility” come off as somewhat elitist. The problem with this brand of elitism is that it runs the risk of turning against itself. At one point (although the page seems to be archived now), Holding’s website listed his Master’s Degree in “Library Science” as a credential, so I’m not sure what he gains by insulting my seminary degree. There’s nothing wrong with a Library Science degree, but it doesn’t automatically make someone an expert in theology or biblical studies any more than a seminary degree does (and dare I say, the seminary degree probably offers more relevant training in those areas than a degree in Library Science does). Now for all I know Holding has gotten more degrees since then (or maybe he hasn’t, I truly don’t know) but he should realize that either way, his dismissiveness toward me based on the degree I hold would also discredit much of the work that he’s done. I seem to remember Jesus saying something about a man with a plank in his eye. In any case, the debate is not about whose degree is more credible but about whose arguments make more sense.
So in the end, Kapr is just another face in The Death of Expertise crowd.
From what I can tell, The Death of Expertise, by Tom Nichols, makes the case that the internet has tricked many people into assuming that they are all experts. The writer of the book description on Amazon opines that “Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats.”
My main response to Holding lumping me in with the problem described here is that Wikipedia and WebMD do not appear in my bibliography, whereas an awful lot of scholarly resources do (including many resources from evangelical scholars). Additionally, in the book I put a good deal of weight on scholarship and particularly on paying attention to scholarly consensus whenever possible. So this criticism that I am merely contributing to the death of “real” expertise makes it seem like Holding is criticizing something he didn’t even try to understand, which feels a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
It is so easy, and tempting (and childish), to accuse an intellectual opponent of getting all their talking points from spurious internet resources, or to insult someone’s intelligence if they happen to disagree with you or (God forbid!) get an important detail wrong. Of course, since Holding’s big contribution to Christian apologetics is an internet resource that is riddled with typos and leans heavily on the judgment of a Master of Library Science, his harsh words about how I represent the death of expertise seem ill-advised.