A Flat Tyre

[bdtayl]

Tim Taylor
A Flat Tyre.

A Rebuttal To Holding’s claims About Tyre

Holding
Issue #1 - Who Are "They"?
"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise.." (NIV)
This verse is pivotal to many of the arguments of each side. Our side would say that the "they" in v. 12 refers back the "nations" in v. 3-5, and were represented by Alexander the Great, who did the things described in v. 12, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Tim Taylor
Where is Alexander mentioned in the text? He isn’t.
Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.

Holding
Skeptics and other critics, however, say that the "they" in v. 12 refers to the elements of Nebuchadnezzar's forces in verses 7 and 11.

Tim Taylor
Below you argue that Alexander had many nations under his command, but for some reason you are remarkably silent on the fact that the same argument would apply to Nebuchadrezzar. Of course, it suits your goal to talk about Alexander's many nations while remaining silent on Nebuchadrezzar.

Hiolding
Nebbie never did the things ascribed to "they," in verse 12 - he failed to take Tyre at all - so the prophecy, it is said, was not fulfilled. A key here is that the "they" in v. 12 can only refer to the "nations" in v. 3. Let's see how this is so.
· Verse 3: The nations are mentioned.
· Verse 4: The nations are referenced as "they."
· Verse 7: Nebbie is introduced, along with his horses, chariots, horsemen, and army.
· Verse 8: Says "HE will ravage your settlements on the mainland...HE will set up siege works against you (etc.)" At this point we see the personification of Nebbie in his forces begin. Obviously, Nebbie did not PERSONALLY do the things described while his army sat by and sipped coconuts.
· Verse 9: says "HE will direct the blows of his battering ram..." Same as above; unless we want to argue that Nebbie only used his personal battering ram which he didn't let anyone else use.
· Verses 10-11: "His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons and chariots when HE enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. The hoofs of his horses will trample all your streets; HE will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground." Here we see two more cases where Nebbie's forces are personified under singular references to himself.

Tim Taylor
As Till has already pointed out, Ezekiel does reference his forces as "they" in Ezekiel 29. As shown here, your rebuttal was nothing but a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Here is the reference in question:

Ezekiel 29 (ASV)
18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor HIS army, from Tyre, for the service that HE served against it.

19
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and HE shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20
I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which HE served, because THEY wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

So, Ezekiel's use of "he" and "they" here torpedoes your argument. What was your "rebuttal" to this?

Holding
Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself.

Tim Taylor
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

If I remove all references to the resurrection on the Gospels, Jesus wasn't resurrected.

Holding
That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity,

Tim Taylor
Ezekiel 29:18 (ASV)
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army

compared to

Ezekiel 26:7 (ASV)
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and a company, and much people.

So, this is Holdings "no true Scotsman." Since Ezekiel refers to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "horses, chariots, horsemen, a company, and much people" in Chapter 26 but as an "army" in Chapter 29, Till's analogy can't be used. For those unfamiliar with the No True Scotsman, here is the definition (http://www.esgs.org/uk/logic.htm)

Ad hoc hypothesis: Hypothesis used to explain away facts that seem to refute one's theory. A special form of it is: "No true Scotsman. . .": an argument that takes the form of: "no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge", which is countered with "my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge", but is followed by the rejoinder, "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge"

Holding
in order to emphasize that "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed raw" - a simple, hyperbolic way of expressing how much trouble the army had to go to against Tyre. Three times (or maybe even four, depending on how you want to count) in the above passage Nebbie is paired with his army in a way that alludes to them as separate entities, and this gives a more than adequate reason for the use of "they" in the last sentence

Tim Taylor
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

<snip remainder of ad hoc fallacy>

Holding
Now the key verse:
Verse 12: "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise..." We may note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12. Skeptics would have us apply the "they" to the folks in v. 7. Aside from the fact that these folks have already been subsumed under Nebbie's pronoun, "HE,"

Tim Taylor
You mean the way his army was subsumed in "his" in Ezekiel 29:18?

Holding
we may ask skeptics why they do not refer "they" to much closer words which agree in the plural sense and thus could be regarded as antecedents - for example, the "horses, wagons, and chariots" described in verses 10-11.



Tim Taylor
And "I" may ask you why this distinction is relevant. Horses have riders. Those riders are part of an army. That army consisted of many nations. So, your red herring here has no relevance. Pick one. It doesn't matter.

Holding
At this point we bring in a new argument brought to my attention, though it was not written in response to this page. An article entitled "A Problem of Unfulfilled Prophecy in Ezekiel" by one David Thompson, found here, argues thusly:
...the prediction of utter destruction is not easily separated from Nebuchadnezzar. Towers and standing columns (massebot) portrayed in the highly schematized art of Assyrian reliefs of insular Tyre make it quite probable that such "towers" and "columns" were distinctive features of the island city. 32 Their appearance in verses 4, 9, and 11 make it difficult to separate the description of Nebuchadnezzar's siege from the opening general prediction of Tyre's complete destruction. This overlap between the opening announcement of Tyre's destruction and the description of Nebuchadnezzar's siege in reference to an apparently distinctive feature of island Tyre make it further probable that Nebuchadnezzar's siege here is seen by Ezekiel as at very least including a thoroughly destructive conquest of the island, not just mainland Tyre.

Thompson's argument rests upon the premise, however, that the "towers" and "columns" by Ezekiel refer to specific (and literal) architectural elements.

Tim Taylor
I can't imagine where Thompson or Ezekiel got such an idea:

"The outer walls, on the side of the mainland, were one hundred and fifty feet high and were SURMOUNTED BY BATTLEMENTS, according to the Greek historians of Alexander's seige" - The History of Tyre, Wallace B. Fleming p. 4, AMS Publishers, 1966 reprint of the 1915 edition.

Holding
(Thompson also does not explain what the reliefs depict the mainland city as looking like, and whether it had any such features.) Since the word for "towers" is used in the Bible to refer to places that are merely lookouts that are higher than the rest of the city, and since "columns" can refer to an edifice even as small as the altar set up by Jacob), I have serious doubts about the relevance of the Assyrian reliefs. There is no reason why the two words cannot refer to less-prominent structures, or else be understood as metaphors for military strength.

Tim Taylor
Very simple:

Ezekiel 26:9
9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons

Ever heard of any army using battering rams against a metaphor?


Holding
Other points raised by Thompson about the reliability of the text itself have been dealt with by Lawhead here.


Tim Taylor
Nothing like a dead link for evidence.

Holding
Bottom line: The "they" in v. 12 does not refer to Nebbie or his army.

Tim Taylor
Bottom line, you've offered nothing but logical fallacies to support your argument from ignorance.

Copyright 2003, Tim Taylor. The author's writings may not be used in whole or in part except on the following lists:

www.theologyweb.com
www.topica.com/list/ii_errancy
alt.bible.errancy

[bdtayl]

You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create
strawman arguments.

That means if you reply, all the discussion will take place right here where everyone can read exactly what I wrote without your tinkering.

Those who may wish to inundate me with replies need not bother. I will respond only to Holding on this issue. I simply don't have time to field numerous replies.

Finally Holding, your arguments instill no fear in me whatsoever. When you reply, save the ad hominem, because I will snip it. Save the labels ("Till's fan, etc) because I will snip it. Save the sarcastic nonsense because I will snip it. If you repeat a point more than once, I will snip it.

I will not allow you to throw up red herring after red herring to deflect attention away from your poor arguments.

[Robyn Banks]

bdtayl:
Copyright 2003, Tim Taylor. The author's writings may not be used in whole or in part except on the following lists:

www.theologyweb.com
www.topica.com/list/ii_errancy
alt.bible.errancy

Tim Taylor
You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create
strawman arguments.
To the contrary, by claiming copyright over your material, you force "JP Holding" to selectively quote you on his site.

Quotation of copyright material is allowed for the exception (inter alia) of "fair use". This means that "JP Holding" may selectively quote parts of your words on his website. But, because you have asserted copyright. he may not copy ALL of it.

Hoist by your own petard.

:rofl:

Robyn

[dizzle]

Dear bdtayl:

Hello... you have posted a significant amount of material as a challenge for fellow member jpholding to exclusively rebut. However, here at Tweb we do have certain rules in place to govern discourse and keep things fair, manageable, and enjoyable for everyone. Please review th following:

2. The maximum post length is 12K characters. Please keep the points concise. Spanning posts as a work around this rule is forbidden and will only be given exemption to articles or content specific material that exceed the post limit. Responses to other's post are not exempt. Before such posts please note in the first post that it will span multiple posts otherwise you will be requested to remedy this or have it deleted.

4. Please limit the number of major points made in a debate/discussion to 1 or 2 per post max as this encourages discourse. Rebuttal posts get undesirably lengthy when addressing many points and will result in a request to edit and in deletion by a moderator if not addressed.

Thus, please consider this a request to consider what major points you would like addressed first, which I am assuming is giong to be "part one" of your series. However, I do not wish to simply make this decision for you. So, I am asking you to let us know if that is the case, and the remaining parts of the series will be deleted until the time comes in the progression of your debate to repost them. I await your response.

[bdtayl]

02-21-2003 @ 07:28 PM
Dee Dee Warren:

Dear bdtayl:

Hello... you have posted a significant amount of material as a challenge for fellow member jpholding to exclusively rebut. However, here at Tweb we do have certain rules in place to govern discourse and keep things fair, manageable, and enjoyable for everyone. Please review th following:

2. The maximum post length is 12K characters. Please keep the points concise. Spanning posts as a work around this rule is forbidden and will only be given exemption to articles or content specific material that exceed the post limit. Responses to other's post are not exempt. Before such posts please note in the first post that it will span multiple posts otherwise you will be requested to remedy this or have it deleted.

4. Please limit the number of major points made in a debate/discussion to 1 or 2 per post max as this encourages discourse. Rebuttal posts get undesirably lengthy when addressing many points and will result in a request to edit and in deletion by a moderator if not addressed.

Thus, please consider this a request to consider what major points you would like addressed first, which I am assuming is giong to be &quot;part one&quot; of your series. However, I do not wish to simply make this decision for you. So, I am asking you to let us know if that is the case, and the remaining parts of the series will be deleted until the time comes in the progression of your debate to repost them. I await your response.

Tim Taylor
We can start with the first one or two posts and you can remove the remainder. As for your requirement that everyone be allowed to respond, that is not something I control.

Just be aware that I may not respond to each post.

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-21-2003 @ 06:53 PM
Robyn Banks:


To the contrary, by claiming copyright over your material, you force &quot;JP Holding&quot; to selectively quote you on his site.

Quotation of copyright material is allowed for the exception (inter alia) of &quot;fair use&quot;. This means that &quot;JP Holding&quot; may selectively quote parts of your words on his website. But, because you have asserted copyright. he may not copy ALL of it.

Hoist by your own petard.

:rofl:

Tim Taylor
If there is something substantive in this post, I must have missed it.

[dizzle]

Dear Tim:

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I will leave your first post and remove the next four which you can repost as the conversation progresses. Also, I apologize if I was unclear, but I in no way meant to say that everyone be allowed to respond. In fact, we do try to honor a thread starters wish to control the direction of a thread whenever possible since anyone else is free to start a thread of their own.. obviously other people may respond as this is in open forum, but I think if you reiterate your request to keep this between you and jp that would be honored by most members.

[geebob]

If and before DD deletes any posts, regarding this:

http://tyros.leb.net/tyre/

There is a photo labelled "Tyre from the air."

Is that peninsula on which the city rests the same one formed by Alexander?

[geebob]

2nd post

Hey, what gives with the move? This fits the theme of theology 101.

no biggie though.

[bdtayl]

02-21-2003 @ 08:52 PM
geebob:

If and before DD deletes any posts, regarding this:

http://tyros.leb.net/tyre/

There is a photo labelled &quot;Tyre from the air.&quot;

Is that peninsula on which the city rests the same one formed by Alexander?

Tim Taylor
Alexander's mole forms part of the peninsula (the old Island portion forms the remainder). The section formed by the original mole has widened over time.

[yxboom]

It could have been dealt with as a foreknowledge debate on prophecy but since the author's intentions were as a skeptic in regards to prophecy it was more in line with Religion 101.

[Robyn Banks]

bdtayl:
You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create
strawman arguments.
Robyn Banks:
To the contrary, by claiming copyright over your material, you force &amp;quot;JP Holding&amp;quot; to selectively quote you on his site.

Quotation of copyright material is allowed for the exception (inter alia) of &amp;quot;fair use&amp;quot;. This means that &amp;quot;JP Holding&amp;quot; may selectively quote parts of your words on his website. But, because you have asserted copyright. he may not copy ALL of it.

Hoist by your own petard.

:rofl:
bdtayl:
If there is something substantive in this post, I must have missed it.
Yes - you did miss the substantive issue being discussed.

You claimed that your assertion of copyright would legally stop "JP Holding" from 'putting your material on his website'.

As I pointed out, your knowledge of the law of copyright is faulty. Not only can "JP Holding" use select quotes from your writing on his website, under the "fair use" exemption, but you have forced him into the very thing you stated you did not want: selective quotation of your 'arguments'.

Hope that helps.

Robyn

[markg]

bdtayl wrote:

You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create strawman arguments.

That means if you reply, all the discussion will take place right here where everyone can read exactly what I wrote without your tinkering.


This is incorrect.

While copyright laws vary from country to country it is a general principle recognized in law that one may copy and quote - selectively or partially - from any written source under the provision of “fair use” for the purpose of “research and study” without infringing copyright. This includes for the purposes of reviewing or for rebuttal of arguments, whether in hard copy or digital format. One cannot prevent anyone from so doing and “copyrighting” one’s work has no effect on this provision as it an exemption granted under law.


Robyn Banks wrote:

To the contrary, by claiming copyright over your material, you force &quot;JP Holding&quot; to selectively quote you on his site.

Quotation of copyright material is allowed for the exception (inter alia) of &quot;fair use&quot;. This means that &quot;JP Holding&quot; may selectively quote parts of your words on his website. But, because you have asserted copyright. he may not copy ALL of it.


This statement is essentially correct except that one does not need to “claim” copyright for copyright to be in effect. Anything that one writes is automatically copyright, and it is false to assume that because no explicit copyright notice appears then the material is in the public domain or copyright free. Thus no one can quote the WHOLE or a SIGNIFICANT PORTION of the work of another without express permission of the original creator, unless more than 50 years have elapsed or the work is expressly in the public domain. Unless expressly granted by you, no one has the legal right to reproduce an entire work of your own creation, but anyone does have the right to reproduce an acceptable part of your or another’s work under fair use provisions for the purpose of research and study.

“Fair use” is not an infringement of copyright law, it is upheld by that law. It is usually deemed to be 10 % of a work but note that one is also EXPRESSLY ALLOWED, for the purpose of research or study, to copy WHOLE articles from a newspaper or magazine that relate to the same subject matter. This may also be relevant and applicable to posts in threads on discussion groups like TheologyWeb. As copyright laws regarding the Internet and digital transmission of information are still in their infancy there is probably more clarification needed on this.

Any restriction on fair use would be unworkable and not in the public interest, as it would constrain legitimate discourse and investigation, especially so in the context of debate. Thus there is just no way that one can prevent “parts” of one’s work appearing as long as it is in the context of “fair use”. If one feels aggrieved by the actions of another then there might be recourse to the law under the new copyright category of “Moral Rights” by which the creator of a work has the right to take legal action if:

1) he is not attributed or credited for his work;
2) his work is falsely attributed to someone else; or
3) his work is treated in a derogatory way – for example, if his work is distorted or modified or treated in a way that is prejudicial to his reputation.

One could also pursue legal redress under charges of defamation.

Under copyright laws it is considered much fairer to copy a “small or unimportant” part of a work than it is to copy a “large or important part”. This aspect of copyright law ensures that one cannot prevent the quoting of parts.

In the case of my own country, and the same general copyright rules apply across most countries now, the Courts have ruled that the concept “research” and “study” in the Copyright Act is interpreted in the following manner.

“Research” means:

“diligent and systematic enquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover facts or principles...”

and “study” includes:

(1.) The application of the mind to the acquisition of knowledge, as by reading, investigation, or
reflection;

(2.) the cultivation of a particular branch of learning, science, or art:..

(3.) a particular course of effort to acquire knowledge...

(4.) a thorough examination and analysis of a particular subject...

You do not need to be enrolled in a course – you can be researching or studying something for yourself. If something can be deemed to be for “research and study” as defined above its use is fair.

PS ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the form in which the ideas are expressed may be subject to copyright.


markg

[Robyn Banks]

Holding:
Skeptics and other critics, however, say that the &quot;they&quot; in v. 12 refers to the elements of Nebuchadnezzar's forces in verses 7 and 11.
It is misleading that "JP Holding" would refer to the label "skeptics and other critics", as though they were the only ones who recognise that Ezekiel 26.12 refers to Nebuchadnezzar. For, it is not "skeptics and critics" that recognise that Ezekiel 26.12 refers to Nebuchadnezzar. It is the vast majority of top Christian commentators on Ezekiel that recognise this.

Zimmerli:
"In the oracles against Tyre, the fall and devastation of Tyre and, quite explicitly in 26:7, her surrender to the great king from the north were expressed. The end of the siege of Tyre appeared quite differently. Whatever the details of the end may have been, Tyre WAS IN ANY CASE NOT DESTROYED AND PLUNDERED."
Vawter/Hoppe:
"The date of this oracle [29:17-21] is 26 April 571. Of the dated oracles in Ezekiel this is the latest. What this text ATTEMPTS TO DO IS TO RESTORE THE PROPHET'S CREDIBILITY AFTER THE PROPHECIES THAT HE UTTERED AGAINST TYRE DID NOT COME TRUE… The biblical tradition had to deal with THE FAILURE OF THE PROPHETIC TEXT."
Eichrodt:
"Nebuchadnezzar's campaign against Tyre, after having lasted thirteen years, had come to an end two or three years previously, WITHOUT HAVING HAD THE RESULT EXPECTED BY THE PROPHET IN HIS ANNOUNCEMENT OF JUDGEMENT AGAINST TYRE. Tyre was not destroyed or even plundered."
Robert R Wilson:
"This oracle [29:17-21], the latest dated oracle in the book, is set in April of 571BC, shortly after the end of Nebuchadnezzar's unsuccessful siege of Tyre. The prophet or his disciples were apparently worried that the earlier prophecies against Tyre had not been fulfilled. To explain this situation, God tells Ezekiel that Egypt is to be given to Nebuchadnezzar as compensation for the effort he expended trying to capture Tyre... As later events developed, EZEKIEL'S SUBSTITUTE PROPHECY AGAINST EGYPT WAS NOT FULFILLED EITHER. Nebuchadnezzar apparently did campaign in Egypt and may have even exacted tribute from the pharaoh, but the country was NOT DESTROYED IN THE WAY THAT THE PROPHET PREDICTED."
As much as "JP Holding" tries to paint this issue as a Christian versus Skeptic/Critic issue, in fact it is not. It is an issue of correct interpretation of the Bible, versus those narrow-minded and specious fundamentalist inerrantists who will try any trick of misinterpretation in order to protect their doctrine of 'inerrancy'. People like "JP Holding" are not interested in correctly interpreting the Bible. They are only interested in protecting their doctrine of inerrancy. Thankfully, mainstream Christian scholarship has not been as blind and dishonest as "JP Holding".

Hope that helps.

Robyn

[Robyn Banks]

markg:
Anything that one writes is automatically copyright, and it is false to assume that because no explicit copyright notice appears then the material is in the public domain or copyright free.
That is technically correct. However, at least in my country (and questions of jurisdiction are a complex internet issue), one may still implicitly waive one's copyright - which is quite possible on an internet forum. By explicit restricting usage of copyright material, for example by use of a copyright notice, one's existing copyright is 'claimed' or asserted, and there is then no doubt or question about implicit waiver.

Due to international copyright conventions, there is a great deal of consistency between countries on copyright law - but still many differences.

Robyn

[bdtayl]

02-21-2003 @ 11:01 PM
Robyn Banks:




Yes - you did miss the substantive issue being discussed.

You claimed that your assertion of copyright would legally stop &quot;JP Holding&quot; from 'putting your material on his website'.

As I pointed out, your knowledge of the law of copyright is faulty. Not only can &quot;JP Holding&quot; use select quotes from your writing on his website, under the &quot;fair use&quot; exemption, but you have forced him into the very thing you stated you did not want: selective quotation of your 'arguments'.

Hope that helps.

Robyn

Tim Taylor
The issue at hand is Tyre, not copyright law.

Christopher Ellwood, troll, please post on the topic at hand, or stop posting. I don't care about your opinion on copyright law.

Anyone interested in the multitude of identities "Robyn" (Christopher Ellwood) has posted under as a troll may contact me off-list at bdtayl@yahoo.com

[jpholding]

Gee, not interested in ostriches and donations? No surprise there. :rofl: Let's get right to this drivel:

Where is Alexander mentioned in the text? He isn’t. Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then
switches back to Alexander in verse 12.

That's right, and that's what I show later on, but you would hardly be who or what you are if you didn't try some pre-emptive manipulation. You learn your lessons well. Spare us the pre-emption prior to argument and data consideration.

Below you argue that Alexander had many nations under his command, but for somereason you are remarkably silent on the fact that the same argument would apply to Nebuchadrezzar.

Whether it would apply to Neb or not is not relevant in the least. The composite actions attributed need only be applicable to Alexander. If it predicted that the attacker would have red hair, and both had red hair, then all that means is that both could qualify on this ground alone if that were all that were said. A nice attempt at an end-around, but I've seen this game before.

As Till has already pointed out, Ezekiel does reference his forces as "they" in Ezekiel 29. As shown here, your rebuttal was nothing but a "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Oh? In that article I had an addendum on FTill's bit on Zeke 29 and you seem to have missed it. And you have the nerve to bleat the canard about selective quoting back to me?

So, Ezekiel's use of "he" and "they" here torpedoes your argument. What was
your "rebuttal" to this?

Look at the Appendix which you hopped, skipped and jumped over. :doh:

This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once
Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces
as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

That comment made absolutely no sense whatsoever and doesn't even engage the detailed analysis I offered of each relevant verse. Wasting my time.

Ad hoc hypothesis: Hypothesis used to explain away facts that seem to refute one's theory.

And how does one decide whether it is this or a case of offering a sound explanation of the facts within a paradigm? Nice sound bite, Oscar Mayer.

But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

That didn't make sense either. Keep trying. I'm surprised English professor Till hasn't kicked you off his list for lack of clarity. Say, did YOU have any problems grasping my "90% payment" comment? Probably did -- you reading level is as bad as Till's, or your memory perhaps (see later).

You mean the way his army was subsumed in "his" in Ezekiel 29:18?

Keep ringing it up, it just adds to the embarrassment of the fact that you missed the appendix.

And "I" may ask you why this distinction is relevant. Horses have riders. Those
riders are part of an army. That army consisted of many nations. So, your red
herring here has no relevance. Pick one. It doesn't matter.

It does, if you want to play the "closest antecedent" game. And just as an FYI the Skeptic this was first addressed to actually did agree that grammatically it would be more correct (in his view) to have "they" refer to the horses, etc. Not that what you wrote above makes sense anyway. If the "they" did refer to the horses then that wouldn't tell us that the riders, army, nations, etc were doing the work.

Thompson's argument rests upon the premise, however, that the "towers" and
"columns" by Ezekiel refer to specific (and literal) architectural elements.

I can't imagine where Thompson or Ezekiel got such an idea: "The outer walls, on the side of the mainland, were one hundred and fifty feet high and were SURMOUNTED BY BATTLEMENTS, according to the Greek historians of Alexander's seige" - The History of Tyre, Wallace B. Fleming p. 4, AMS
Publishers, 1966 reprint of the 1915 edition.

Oopsy. You're not answering the actual point here, which is:

Since the word for "towers" is used in the Bible to refer to places that are merely lookouts that
are higher than the rest of the city, and since "columns" can refer to an
edifice even as small as the altar set up by Jacob), I have serious doubts
about the relevance of the Assyrian reliefs. There is no reason why the two
words cannot refer to less-prominent structures, or else be understood as
metaphors for military strength.

I don't deny at all that Tyre, both aspects of it, may (or may not) have had such features at any given e -- Neb's or Alexander's. Try actually understanding the argument next time before you address it -- a bad habit you seem to have (see below).

Ever heard of any army using battering rams against a metaphor?

Absolutely. A metaphor for other military features. "Battering rams" as an inclusive metaphor for all offensive capabilities; "towers" as a methaphor for any defensive capabilities. Metaphor vs. metaphor, if needed.

Nothing like a dead link for evidence.

Actually both links are now dead. I just found out why. Wesleyan has changed the format of the addresses; they seem to have added another folder. I'll have that fixed up tonight.

Bottom line, you've offered nothing but logical fallacies to support your
argument from ignorance.

Lower line, you have little going for you but a smart mouth and didn't even address the grammatical uniformity, merely blowing your nose on it. Some challenge. :rofl:

BTW [b]Robyn I subsume the likes of Zimmerli under "critics" as they would of course be considered "critical" of the position I advocate. As you've had your tail whipped lately by me, you'd best keep yourself in bed as you are as much a failure at producing responsive counterarguments as any other Skeptic/critic I have encountered.

[jpholding]

Now for this claptrap:

You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to
put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create
strawman arguments.

That means shiitake mushroom, in light of fair use policy,as several have pointed out so helpfully. As for selective quoting, that's a hypocritical charge from someone who cut out an entire appendix and isn't even an M.D. And we're still waiting for an actual example of a clipped argument where a case was actually affected. So far it's all just burps and needless repetition.

Those who may wish to inundate me with replies need not bother. I will respond
only to Holding on this issue. I simply don't have time to field numerous
replies.

Well isn't that just too bad. Let a Christian try that on Errancy list and I'll bet Krueger, Todd, and the rest of the Hee Haw gang will laugh in your face. Now here's my ultimatum. if you DON'T reply to other people's replies here, I will ignore you until you do, and if I end up having to do this for more than 2 days, I WILL reply on the site and I WILL quote within fair use allowances and I WILL summarize the arguments as needed for the rest. I alrady have the full reply done so all it needs is HTML.

Finally Holding, your arguments instill no fear in me whatsoever.

Fear is not necessary. Your distracted irritation, as so far displayed, is perfectly satisfactory.

If you repeat a point more than once, I will snip it.

Good. I did the same to you. And I can do the same when Till repeats Deut. 9 thirty times, yes? Knew you'd agree.

I will not allow you to throw up red herring after red herring to deflect
attention away from your poor arguments.

Well, you've already cornered the market on fish in the past. Just to let everyone know what kind of shimmy artist we have on hand here, here's a Google forum letter by this fellow, on the subject of the Pope Leo quote, with the following allegations, which I will just interrupt to correct, in italics (this is taken from one of my articles):

"I honestly don't know whether the information at 'Holding's" website is accurate on this issue or not but if I were a Christian I would be cautious about using information from tektonics.org. First, Holding is not his real name. His real name is XXXXX XXXXXXX. Yeah, that sure affects the info on the site, huh! If [bdtayl]'s name were really Ooflebert Blebberskeit, his entire argument would be disproved. His website is a place where he quotes skeptics selectively and out of context. Standard yelp from the parrot's beak; of course not one example, all he did was take Till's Mighty Word for it. He also has a writing style where he frequently provides references consisting of titles, authors, and page numbers and then concludes that such arguments "settle" the issue at hand (see his parousia article for a fine example.) Heck, yeah. And don't ask [bdtayl] to go down to the library and do any actual bootwork against the real scholars proving them wrong. Nuh uh. Translation: I provide cites from scholars who know their business, who get their doctorates in the field, and do the actual legwork while Skeptics like [bdtayl] are scraping the fungus from under their toenails and using extra-drippy ice cream as a proof against God's omnibenevolence. He continually rails against books that are critical of Christianity claiming that many of them are not written by scholars, yet he never tells his own readers that he is no scholar himself, but is in fact a prison librarian. Many of them are NOT written by scholars (i.e., relevant scholars); they are written by kidney specialists or news broadcasters or some other non-related profession. I mentioned frequently that I was a librarian; where has [bdtayl] been all this time? And what paranoia led [bdtayl] to thereby conclude implicitly and in reverse that I claimed to be a scholar by profession? Where was he? Collecting bogus quotes by Pope Leo, no doubt. Further, I caught him in a blatant lie a couple of years ago on the "created/had created" issue in Genesis 2. His initial article claimed the "only version I am aware of that renders it as 'created' is the KJV." [bdtayl] definitely has a little memory problem; we'll relate that after we relate his full charge. After a Christian on Till's list forwarded rebuttals back to [Holding], he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the e he wrote his first article. To put it mildly, horse hockey. I never wrote anything about the word "created" being rendered any way, and it wasn't in relation to the KJV. Here is what [bdtayl] is muddled over: [b]G1 says that animals were created before man; G2 says that man came first, there was a need to designate a helpmeet, then animals were created for the first time...or does it? For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (but no other version that I know of) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so: Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. So it was "formed" and not "created"; it was the NIV, not the KJV; and while that essay was updated in response to some Till hacks who had apparently found a Hebrew grammar on the floor, and despite [bdtayl]'s implication, the version I was "only aware of" was something that favored the position I took, not something against it, and I said zip about other versions. Finally, he refuses to debate Farrell Till in an open forum where all comments written by both sides can be seen. Till of course ran from this "open forum" with his tail between his legs, yelping about guidelines that were either alreayd in place here or he didn't need. The comments can also be seen by any doofus with a search engine and a working intellect. [bdtayl] has one of the two. Guess which it is. Hint: he wrote this message on a Google forum!] Here's what [bdtayl] really means: "Holding doesn't give links and Christians are too dumb to find the responses. We'll never get to change their mind that way, but once they see our full arguments, they'll be convinced!" What conceit! The one written debate he did have with Till can be viewed at inifidels.org and if you read any of it you will see the pattern of debate I note above. He repeatedly provides a long list of authors and page numbers as if such tactics demonstrate the reasoning behind the scholarship. You will see Till getting his tuckus whupped because he can't handle the scholarship cites either, his best answer being, "That was published in Grand Rapids!" Keep in mind, folks, these are the people who think that I misquote and selectively edit people. Given [bdtayl]'s problem with neo-Alzheimer's, I wouldn't be sure to take their word for it."

Nice try, bdtayl. But no surprise you didn't want to touch the topics I actually challenged on. Now try to follow forum rules in the future (the ones already in place that your Master didn't care about) and see if you can't come up with something that actually addresses the issues and the arguments.

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-22-2003 @ 01:55 AM
jpholding:

<snip posturing>

Tim Taylor
Where is Alexander mentioned in the text? He isn’t. Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.

Holding
That's right, and that's what I show later on,


Tim Taylor
No, actually you never show it. All you show is you are an expert snipper.

<snip blather>

Tim Taylor
Below you argue that Alexander had many nations under his command, but for somer eason you are remarkably silent on the fact that the same argument would apply to Nebuchadrezzar.

Holding
Whether it would apply to Neb or not is not relevant in the least. The composite actions attributed need only be applicable to Alexander. If it predicted that the attacker would have red hair, and both had red hair, then all that means is that both could qualify on this ground alone if that were all that were said. A nice attempt at an end-around, but I've seen this game before.

Tim Taylor
It is quite relevant because you apply the argument to Alexander to make a distinction between Alexander, who is not mentioned in the text, and Nebuchadrezzar, who is.

Tim Taylor
As Till has already pointed out, Ezekiel does reference his forces as &quot;they&quot; in Ezekiel 29. As shown here, your rebuttal was nothing but a &quot;no true Scotsman&quot; fallacy.

<snip irrelevant comment>

Tim Taylor
So, Ezekiel's use of &quot;he&quot; and &quot;they&quot; here torpedoes your argument. What was
your &quot;rebuttal&quot; to this?

<snip holding's irrelevant comment>

Tim Taylor
[i]This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as &quot;they&quot;, of course the only remaining references are to &quot;he.&quot;

Holding
That comment made absolutely no sense whatsoever and doesn't even engage the detailed analysis I offered of each relevant verse. Wasting my time.

Tim Taylor
The statement made perfect sense and I replied specifically to your appendix, which you have snipped here without reply and which you laughingly claim elsewhere I cut out. One reply, and you're already making false accusations and snipping arguments you can't answer. Ezekiel alternated between "he" and "they" in both Ezekiel 26 and 29. Either address the argument I posted, or admit you can't.


Tim Taylor
Ad hoc hypothesis: Hypothesis used to explain away facts that seem to refute one's theory.

<snip nonresponse by ******>

Tim Taylor
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?


<snip ad hominem by Holding>

Tim Taylor
You mean the way his army was subsumed in &quot;his&quot; in Ezekiel 29:18?

<Snip irrelevant comment by Holding>

Tim Taylor
And &quot;I&quot; may ask you why this distinction is relevant. Horses have riders. Those riders are part of an army. That army consisted of many nations. So, your red herring here has no relevance. Pick one. It doesn't matter.

Holding
It does, if you want to play the &quot;closest antecedent&quot; game.

Tim Taylor
Show us, don't tell us

Holding
And just as an FYI the Skeptic this was first addressed to actually did agree that grammatically it would be more correct (in his view) to have &quot;they&quot; refer to the horses, etc. Not that what you wrote above makes sense anyway.

Tim Taylor
Good for him. Show us what does not make sense, don't tell us.

Holding
If the &quot;they&quot; did refer to the horses then that wouldn't tell us that the riders, army, nations, etc were doing the work.

Tim Taylor
Um, it would tell you they were Nebuchadrezzar's horses, nations, etc.

Holding
Thompson's argument rests upon the premise, however, that the &quot;towers&quot; and &quot;columns&quot; by Ezekiel refer to specific (and literal) architectural elements.

Tim Taylor
I can't imagine where Thompson or Ezekiel got such an idea: &quot;The outer walls, on the side of the mainland, were one hundred and fifty feet high and were SURMOUNTED BY BATTLEMENTS, according to the Greek historians of Alexander's seige&quot; - The History of Tyre, Wallace B. Fleming p. 4, AMS
Publishers, 1966 reprint of the 1915 edition.

Holding
Oopsy. You're not answering the actual point here, which is:
Since the word for &quot;towers&quot; is used in the Bible to refer to places that are merely lookouts that are higher than the rest of the city,

Tim Taylor
You mean this is your usual tactic of claiming you know more than the translators? If the City included a 150 foot wall, then the towers would be more than 150 feet.

Do you ever provide evidence, or is argument by assertion your only means of communication?

Holding
and since &quot;columns&quot; can refer to an
edifice even as small as the altar set up by Jacob), I have serious doubts about the relevance of the Assyrian reliefs. There is no reason why the two words cannot refer to less-prominent structures, or else be understood as metaphors for military strength.

Tim Taylor
Um, the reason is that Tyre had 150 foot walls and you are shifting the burden of proof. If you have evidence this verse is a metaphor post it. I have no burden to prove a universal negative.

Please learn the definitions of basic logical fallacies before you pretend to debate.

Holding
I don't deny at all that Tyre, both aspects of it, may (or may not) have had such features at any given [bdtayl]e -- Neb's or Alexander's. Try actually understanding the argument next time before you address it -- a bad habit you seem to have (see below).

Tim Taylor
I understand it, and actually address it. Unlike you.

I looked below and found nothing.

Tim Taylor
Ever heard of any army using battering rams against a metaphor?

Holding
Absolutely. A metaphor for other military features. &quot;Battering rams&quot; as an inclusive metaphor for all offensive capabilities; &quot;towers&quot; as a methaphor for any defensive capabilities. Metaphor vs. metaphor, if needed.

Tim Taylor
Well, then just provide evidence that the words in this case are not to taken literally. The city had walls, the attacker had battering rams.

<snip reason for dead link>

[i]Tim Taylor
Bottom line, you've offered nothing but logical fallacies to support your argument from ignorance.

Holding
Lower line, you have little going for you but a smart mouth and didn't even address the grammatical uniformity

<snip ad hominem>

Tim Taylor
If I have nothing going for me, I wonder what that says about someone who answers arguments with diversions and ad hominems?

My posts addressed the uniformity of the entire prophecy.

Either address the arguments with something other than diversions, or admit you can't.


<snip statement about Ellwood>

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-22-2003 @ 01:59 AM
jpholding:

Now for this claptrap:


Tim Taylor
You will note I copyrighted my rebuttal. That means you don't have the right to put my material on your website where you can selectively quote me and create strawman arguments.

Holding
<snip ad hominem>in light of fair use policy,as several have pointed out so helpfully. As for selective quoting, that's a hypocritical charge from someone who cut out an entire appendix and isn't even an M.D.

Tim Taylor
I cut no appendix. I replied to your "arguments" from it, in detail.
You of course, snipped it. Until you formulate a cogent rebuttal, my thrashing of your "no true scotsman" stands.

Don't reply with diversion. Don't reply with an ad hominem. Don't reply with a handwave. Don't reply with a red herring. Actually show you can formulate an argument.

Holding
And we're still waiting for an actual example of a clipped argument where a case was actually affected.

Tim Taylor
I have one already. You snipped my rebuttal of your "no true scotsman" argument concerning Ezekiel 26 and 29.

Imagine what a mine of examples your website is.

Holding
So far it's all just burps and needless repetition.

Tim Taylor
Yes, I'm sure a provision of numerous examples would provide you a wonderful diversion. Your denials would provide another diversion and before you know it you would have successfully diverted attention from your non-arguments about Tyre.

Sorry, not this time.

Tim Taylor
Those who may wish to inundate me with replies need not bother. I will respond only to Holding on this issue. I simply don't have time to field numerous replies.

Holding
<snip irrelevant material about errancy list>

Now here's my ultimatum. if you DON'T reply to other people's replies here, I will ignore you until you do, and if I end up having to do this for more than 2 days, I WILL reply on the site and I WILL quote within fair use allowances and I WILL summarize the arguments as needed for the rest. I already have the full reply done so all it needs is HTML.

Tim Taylor
I DON'T take ultimatums from you. If you want to ignore the rebuttals to your specious arguments in this forum, I don't care.

They will be here for 150 people to read them. Your reasoning is bad no matter what forum you post to.

The remainder of this post was your typical irrelevancies relating to activity on other lists and other people and has no relation at all to your poor reasoning skills on Tyre.

Stay on topic please.

[Robyn Banks]

jpholding:
BTW Robyn I subsume the likes of Zimmerli under &quot;critics&quot; as they would of course be considered &quot;critical&quot; of the position I advocate.
The Christian commentators I quoted from were writers of some of the major commentries on Ezekiel. Your own amateur misinterpretation of Ezekiel is, notably, at odds with the more learned Christian interpretations of Ezekiel.

"Critic" of course has more than one meaning. One meaning is pejorative, "a person who expresses an unfavourable opinion of something". The second meaning is quite positive, "a person who judges the merits of literary, artistic, or musical works, especially one who does so professionally.

Most interpreters of the Bible would of course wish to claim they are critical interpreters of the Bible, in the second sense. No Christian commentators would describe themselves as Bible critics in the first sense, yet that is the sense which you imply by your sui generis listing of 'critic' with 'skeptic'. And in fact, Christian commentators such as Zimmerli, Vawter, Hoppe, Eichrodt and Wilson are defenders of the Bible, not critics. They do, however, recognise that the Bible contains unfulfilled prophecies.

That some Christians find errors in the Bible is only a problem in your mindset, not in theirs. They are not being 'Bible critics', in the pejorative first sense of the word, except through your eyes. No doubt some of them look at your perverse misinterpretations, and consider that you thereby bring the Bible into disrepute. But although this may be the effect of your fanciful eisegesis, I presume it is not your intention. So, neither you nor learned biblical scholars such as Zimmerli, Vawter, Hoppe, Eichrodt and Wilson would view yourselves as 'Bible Critics' in this first sense. Each of you are upholding the Bible, according to your own views of it.

As far as the second sense of 'critic' goes, that description is clearly only attributable to Zimmerli, Vawter, Hoppe, Eichrodt and Wilson - not to you. While Zimmerli, Vawter, Hoppe, Eichrodt and Wilson employ their significantly educated critical facilities to the text, you merely produce the perverse and tententious misinterpretations of an uneducated and amateurish internet hack.

jpholding:
As you've had your tail whipped lately by me,
Only in your dreams have you been able to even keep up with me. My own contributions on David & Goliath and elsewhere have displayed such a deep knowledge of the texts, that your own scurrying around the surface of things, and offering of a largely irrelevant and ill thought-out excuse for a reply is nothing short of a joke. This is hardly surprising, because your internet ramblings are also nothing short of a joke - vastly uninformed, entirely one-eyed and unscholarly.


jpholding:
you'd best keep yourself in bed as you are as much a failure at producing responsive counterarguments as any other Skeptic/critic I have encountered.
And in this term "Skeptic/critic" you repeat your mistake. I am neither a skeptic nor a critic. I merely wish to interpret the Bible for what it itself says. You, on the other hand would force and twist the words of Scripture into your perverted man-made hermeneutic of 'inerrancy'. And in so doing, you demsonstrate your complete disrespect for the text of the Bible, and your preference of man-made doctrines.

The reason you don't even begin to make a convincing argument is that you are uninterested in actually finding the best meaning of the text, but prefer to wallow around in the dung of your own faulty heremeneutic. It may convince the odd uneducated internet-reader, but to anyone with even a little knowledge, your methods are transparently incorrect, and fatally flawed.

Hope that helps.

Robyn

[stevencarrwork]

I find it amazing the way Holding forgets his own arguments.


Holding says 'Nebbie never did the things ascribed to "they," in verse 12 - he failed to take Tyre at all - so the prophecy, it is said, was not fulfilled. A key here is
that the "they" in v. 12 can only refer to the "nations" in v. 3. Let's see how this is so.
· Verse 3: The nations are mentioned.
· Verse 4: The nations are referenced as "they."'

Replying to http://theskepticalreview.com/jftill/mary/problem.html
in
http://www.tektonics.org/tillmagged.html ****** lambasts people who use this sort of argumentation as 'a load of bosh from a Western literalist from a fundamentalist denomination', because Holding cannot allow himself to say that 'the women' in Matthew 28:5 refers to the women Matthew named earlier.

Holding continues 'McTill can therefore take his cheap English-grammatical argument, and all the panic buttons he presses, and make pizza pie out of them.'

And in his Tyre argument , Holding writes '..." We may
note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12.'

Surely Holding is the one resorting to cheap English-grammatical arguments, and Mr. Taylor is making pizza-pie out of them.

[johnransom]

02-21-2003 @ 11:07 PM
stevencarrwork:

I find it amazing the way Holding forgets his own arguments...Holding continues 'McTill can therefore take his cheap English-grammatical argument, and all the panic buttons he presses, and make pizza pie out of them.'

And in his Tyre argument , Holding writes '...&quot; We may
note that this is the first recurrence of &quot;they&quot; since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the &quot;they&quot; in verse 3, the &quot;nations,&quot; is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12.'

Surely Holding is the one resorting to cheap English-grammatical arguments, and Mr. Taylor is making pizza-pie out of them.

JPH wonders why Little Stevie can't get his swollen head out of his NIV Bible. Well, here's the answer - he can't understand even basic English. JP quite clearly was NOT making an "English-grammatical argument"; what he said was that this was a literary argument that would work even in English. By implication - the argument rests on the literary forms of some other language. Nothing to do with grammar or English.

But then, Stevie probably can't grasp the idea of anyone speaking any language other than English.

[stevencarrwork]

02-22-2003 @ 05:32 AM
johnransom:



JPH wonders why Little Stevie can't get his swollen head out of his NIV Bible. Well, here's the answer - he can't understand even basic English. JP quite clearly was NOT making an &quot;English-grammatical argument&quot;; what he said was that this was a literary argument that would work even in English. By implication - the argument rests on the literary forms of some other language.

I'm not sure I always trust Holding's grasp of other langages. He has a remarkable habit of double-vision, seeing words which are not there.

For example, he writes about Matthew 12:23 in
http://www.tektonics.org/olivet01.html 'And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." "World" in both cases is aion.) '

It goes without saying that if Holding says a Greek word appears twice in a verse, then it only appears once. 'aion' only appears once in this verse.

This aside apart, Holding's insistence that the references to 'the women' and 'they' in Matthew 28:5, and Matt. 28:8 do not refer to the women mentioned in Matthew 28:1, and that it is 'bigoted anachronism' even to try to find out who is referred to, sits uneasily with his throwing around 'theys' and 'he's in his analysis of Ezekiel 26.

[djconklin]

>Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.

Simply because Holding (and others, we should add) are able to determine which verse refers to whom is no reason whatsoever to impute that meaning to Ezekiel. Ezekiel was simply shown that the _power_ of Tyre would be broken and completely destroyed he wasn't shown by whom or when.

Finally, we need to remember that all prophecies are contingent on a number of unknown factors. :argh:

Say, Mark since you explained copyright so well would you mind functioning as an unbiased "expert" on the matter? I have done a study where a lady was accused of plagiarism and have found that her use of others material was well within the fair use idea. My work can be found at http://members.tcq.net/dconklin/plagiarism/index2.html

[djconklin]

> Matthew 12:23 in
http://www.tektonics.org/olivet01.html 'And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." "World" in both cases is aion.) '

If he did then he was wrong on more than one count because that verse actually says: "And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?" See verse 32.

>the references to 'the women' and 'they' in Matthew 28:5

There is no "they" in that verse.

[djconklin]

> Matthew 12:23 in
http://www.tektonics.org/olivet01.html 'And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." "World" in both cases is aion.) '

If he did then he was wrong on more than one count because that verse actually says: "And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?" See verse 32.

>the references to 'the women' and 'they' in Matthew 28:5

There is no "they" in that verse.

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-22-2003 @ 01:26 PM
djconklin:

Tim Taylor
Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.

Conklin
Simply because Holding (and others, we should add) are able to determine which verse refers to whom is no reason whatsoever to impute that meaning to Ezekiel. Ezekiel was simply shown that the _power_ of Tyre would be broken and completely destroyed he wasn't shown by whom or when.

Tim Taylor
David, your last statement is an assertion, and no evidence follows it. Ezekiel 29 serves as an example of Ezekiel's use of both "he" and "they" when referring to Nebuchadrezzar.

An interpretation that is denied simply because it leads to a false prophecy is circular reasoning.


<snip>

[jpholding]

In rides Tim Taylor, still whipping that dead horse he's eating for breakfast,

<snip posturing>

Aw. Didums feelings get hurt? :rofl: Dial 1-800-SYMPATHY for support.

No, actually you never show it. All you show is you are an expert snipper.

I do show it, but your bare-faced denial shows up a lot better. :rofl: Keep it up. As your snipping of my last expose' of you showed, you seem to prefer the avoidance technique.

<snip blather>

Wow! All 12 years of The Skeptical Review just disappeared!

Whether it would apply to Neb or not is not relevant in the least. The composite actions attributed need only be applicable to Alexander. If it predicted that the attacker would have red hair, and both had red hair, then all that means is that both could qualify on this ground alone if that were all that were said. A nice attempt at an end-around, but I've seen this game before.

It is quite relevant because you apply the argument to Alexander to make a distinction between Alexander, who is not mentioned in the text, and Nebuchadrezzar, who is.

It is not relevant bceause of the reason I stated, which you did not answer, preferring instead to merely repeat the same point you already made. Who are you, Acharya S?

<snip irrelevant comment>

You mean the comments where I noted that you missed my Appendix on Ezekiel 29? Oh dear, woodsman, spare that embarrassment.

statement made perfect sense and I replied specifically to your appendix

Sure you did. Amazing how you did it without even quoting it or noting it existed, and by asking where my rebuttal was to Till's point.

ther address the argument I posted, or admit you can't.

Either address the appendix directly here, or take up mushroom smoking to go with the other bad habits you have.

<snip ad hominem by Holding>

You mean the request to explain your vague comment?

Show us, don't tell us

I did. You never produced an actual answer.

Um, it would tell you they were Nebuchadrezzar's horses, nations, etc.

Which still does not tell you that it was Neb's people who did it. :dunce:

You mean this is your usual tactic of claiming you know more than the translators?

No, this is your tactic (following Till) of stuffing the wrong argument in someone's mouth to make yourself look impressive. Why not let me just put:

<snipped flaming high strawman>

If the City included a 150 foot wall, then the towers would be more than 150 feet.

Since my argument does not rest on the need for towers to be absent or present, it makes no difference.

Do you ever provide evidence, or is argument by assertion your only means of communication?

Can I put, <snip loaded question of the 'have you stopped beating your wife' variety, coupled with flaming high straw man>?

Um, the reason is that Tyre had 150 foot walls and you are shifting the burden of proof. If you have evidence this verse is a metaphor post it. I have no burden to prove a universal negative.

Nor any burden to learn about ANE metaphors of war, apparently, so that as usual, freethinkers assume we are responsible for informing their ignorance. In light of ANE "trash talk" of war, IF Tyre had no such towers and IF Zeke uses the word, then that is prima facie evidence of a metaphorical usage. At least anywhere else it would be. For freethinkers it is proof of ancient stupidity.

Please learn the definitions of basic logical fallacies before you pretend to debate.

Please blow your nose, that's disgusting. Please educate yourself about facts before applying logic carelessly. Can I put, <snip pompous statement>?

I looked below and found nothing.

Other than a complete recounting of your bad habits, repeated in this forum and thus establishing a pattern you'd prefer people not know about.

Well, then just provide evidence that the words in this case are not to taken literally. The city had walls, the attacker had battering rams.

Lack of literal presence combined with ANE war "trash talk" is sufficient evidence. Tell us this, mighty mustard, he who has made such a thorough study of ancient lit -- when Pharaoh Rammses III said:

The Sherden and the Washesh of the sea were made non-existent, captured all together and brought on captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore.

...didn't he just contradict himself within this sentence? How could he take captive people he had made non-existent? We await your pedantically literalist answer.

If I have nothing going for me, I wonder what that says about someone who answers arguments with diversions and ad hominems?

When all there is to answer is vague hand-waving and non-rebuttals, that's usually all that is needed.

I have one already. You snipped my rebuttal of your "no true scotsman" argument concerning Ezekiel 26 and 29.

It was answered, by being shown to be of no relevance and not being an actual reply to my argument, which means your example is worthless. As usual from your end.

Imagine what a mine of examples your website is.

Go find three and start another thread.

Your denials would provide another diversion and before you know it you would have successfully diverted attention from your non-arguments about Tyre.

You mean like Till inserts diversions all the time? :rofl: Gee, so is that what he's trying to do? Gee. Now we know the ballgame. It's the sick imagining their disease in others.

Sorry, not this time.

Apology accepted.

<snip irrelevant material about errancy list>

I.e., snip exposure of your laughable attempt to evade engaging other people.

I DON'T take ultimatums from you. If you want to ignore the rebuttals to your specious arguments in this forum, I don't care.

But you cared enough to say so? :rofl: You don't have to "take" it. It will proceed with or without your consent.

The remainder of this post was your typical irrelevancies relating to activity on other lists and other people and has no relation at all to your poor reasoning skills on Tyre. Stay on topic please.

I.e., don't expose your consistent inadequacies and spoil the party? Got it.

[jpholding]

In rides Red Robyn, looking for all the world like a plucked quail:

The Christian commentators I quoted from were writers of some of the major commentries on Ezekiel. Your own amateur misinterpretation of Ezekiel is, notably, at odds with the more learned Christian interpretations of Ezekiel.

Well, isn't that special. It sure substitutes for actual argument, doesn't it?

No Christian commentators would describe themselves as Bible critics in the first sense, yet that is the sense which you imply by your sui generis listing of 'critic' with 'skeptic'

No one is responsible for your paranoid reading in of implications but yourself. Hence the rest of your rant on this topic is no more than a defense of your own mistake.

While Zimmerli, Vawter, Hoppe, Eichrodt and Wilson employ their significantly educated critical facilities to the text, you merely produce the perverse and tententious misinterpretations of an uneducated and amateurish internet hack.

Evangelion, is that you? We're still waiting for you to do more than blow smoke and flash mirrors. The real deal appears to be that you are a snot-nosed teenager (physically or intellectually) who gets lost when you have to go beyond copying and pasting arguments from others, and places where you can use the word "perverse" and "tendentious" more than 6 times in a paragraph.

My own contributions on David & Goliath and elsewhere have displayed such a deep knowledge of the texts,

They show you are good at copying and pasting, followed by posturing with the word "tendentious" printed on a T shirt.

This is hardly surprising, because your internet ramblings are also nothing short of a joke - vastly uninformed, entirely one-eyed and unscholarly.

We're still waiting for you to produce actual answers to a single word of it. So far all we have in a lame attempt at parody which featured links to articles by people like Bishop Holloway who were caught with their figurative pants down in a girlie bar. :rofl:

Nice articles on earthquakes, though.

It may convince the odd uneducated internet-reader, but to anyone with even a little knowledge, your methods are transparently incorrect, and fatally flawed.

Then show it. Don't blow it. Get back to David and Goliath and make us proud.

[jpholding]

In waddles Stevie Carr, still looking for that nose gremlin he misplaced and someone who thinks sun dogs don't look like suns,

I'm not sure I always trust Holding's grasp of other langages. He has a remarkable habit of double-vision, seeing words which are not there.

Too bad for your master, Stevie, that cite you gave is an example of his "90% of your website" careless reading skills. "World" is aion in both cases. I said nothing about it being in the text twice.

BTW does that 90% comment he made mean, "I'm not sure I always trust FTill's grasp of basic reading"?

I imagine you'll be disappearing again for a while. :rofl: Consider thinking for yourself before copying Almighty FTill's arguments and being his loyal parrot in all he speaks.

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-22-2003 @ 02:48 PM
jpholding:

Tim Taylor
[/i] <snip more of Hoilding's irrelevant sarcasm>.


Tim Taylor
No, actually you never show it. All you show is you are an expert snipper.

Holding
I do show it, but your bare-faced denial shows up a lot better. :rofl: Keep it up. As your snipping of my last expose' of you showed, you seem to prefer the avoidance technique.

Tim Taylor
Don't claim to show it, actually show it.

Your "expose" had nothing to do with Tyre, therefore it was snipped, and that is what is going to keep happening to all your diversionary crap.

<snip more of Holding's irrelevant blather>


Holding
Whether it would apply to Neb or not is not relevant in the least. The composite actions attributed need only be applicable to Alexander. If it predicted that the attacker would have red hair, and both had red hair, then all that means is that both could qualify on this ground alone if that were all that were said. A nice attempt at an end-around, but I've seen this game before.


Tim Taylor
It is quite relevant because you apply the argument to Alexander to make a distinction between Alexander, who is not mentioned in the text, and Nebuchadrezzar, who is.

[i] Holding
It is not relevant bceause of the reason I stated, which you did not answer, preferring instead to merely repeat the same point you already made. Who are you, Acharya S?

Tim Taylor
More diversions

The points you made about Alexander TO DISTINGUISH HIM FROM
NEBUCHADREZZAR apply to Nebuchadrezzar.

Nebuchadrezzar is mentioned by Ezekiel. Alexander is not.

Please attempt to rebut the argument, or admit you can't.

Holding
You mean the comments where I noted that you missed my Appendix on Ezekiel 29? Oh dear, woodsman, spare that embarrassment.

Tim Taylor
I welcome everyone here to go review my first post, WHERE I BROUGHT YOUR APPENDIX UP AND DEALT WITH THE ARGUMENTS.

Then they can look at your appendix and see the exact same words.

Stop lying and diverting and address the bloody argument.

If you don't address the arguments, I'll move on to number 2 and embarrass you further.


Tim Taylor
statement made perfect sense and I replied specifically to your appendix

Holding
Sure you did.

Tim Taylor
OK, here's more embarrassment. A portion of my first post, which you snipped:

============
Tim Taylor
So, Ezekiel's use of "he" and "they" here torpedoes your argument. What was your "rebuttal" to this?

Holding
Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre
prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself.

Tim Taylor
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

If I remove all references to the resurrection on the Gospels, Jesus wasn't resurrected.

Holding
That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity,
=============
Tim Taylor
Now, do your comments between the "====" here come from your appendix, YES, OR NO?

Holding
Amazing how you did it without even quoting it

Tim Taylor
Just showed I quoted it. Stop lying.

I'm stopping here before I address the remainder of your fallacious reasoning until you admit you lied, or address the argumert. Get on with it, your old tactics won't work against me.

[jpholding]

In again rides Tiny Tim, on that dead Shetland pony with the mustache, and about to learn his lesson for the day:

Your &quot;expose&quot; had nothing to do with Tyre, therefore it was snipped, and that is what is going to keep happening to all your diversionary crap.

Cool. You'll play the denial game and make it obvious you're in denial. Love it. :rofl: This is so easy.

The points you made about Alexander TO DISTINGUISH HIM FROM
NEBUCHADREZZAR apply to Nebuchadrezzar.

I should say, <snip of repeated argument already addressed>

I welcome everyone here to go review my first post, WHERE I BROUGHT YOUR APPENDIX UP AND DEALT WITH THE ARGUMENTS.
Then they can look at your appendix and see the exact same words.

Oh yes. Just like they can look at my Genesis article and see how you quoted and referred to it accurately. :rofl: Learned your lesson now? Good. Now where's your apology?

Stop lying and diverting and address the bloody argument.

"Bloody" is about the right word to describe the condition of your argument at this stage. I did address the arguments; you just don't like it. Like most in this crowd you have a habit of throwing alleged logical fallacies out as though they actually apply. Very well, to expose the full absurdity:

So, this is Holdings "no true Scotsman." Since Ezekiel refers to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "horses, chariots, horsemen, a company, and much people" in Chapter 26 but as an "army" in Chapter 29, Till's analogy can't be used.

That's right, it can't. Because Ez. 26 and Ez. 29 are different oracles. There is therefore no "ad hoc" change in midstream.

But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

No it doesn't, because they are immediately subsumed under Neb's identity. Same point. Still not addressed by you.


Now, do your comments between the &quot;====&quot; here come from your appendix, YES, OR NO?

Oh, yes, they do! :rofl: Now, do the facts you allegedly ripped from my creation accounts article match what is actually IN the article, YES, OR NO? Be sure and edit this comment as "diversionary crap" and pretend it doesn't make a salient point about your techniques.

And we'd sure like an answer about Ramsses III.

[johnransom]

02-22-2003 @ 02:01 AM
stevencarrwork:



I'm not sure I always trust Holding's grasp of other langages. He has a remarkable habit of double-vision, seeing words which are not there.

For example, he writes about Matthew 12:23 in
http://www.tektonics.org/olivet01.html 'And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.&quot; &quot;World&quot; in both cases is aion.) '

It goes without saying that if Holding says a Greek word appears twice in a verse, then it only appears once. 'aion' only appears once in this verse.

This aside apart, Holding's insistence that the references to 'the women' and 'they' in Matthew 28:5, and Matt. 28:8 do not refer to the women mentioned in Matthew 28:1, and that it is 'bigoted anachronism' even to try to find out who is referred to, sits uneasily with his throwing around 'theys' and 'he's in his analysis of Ezekiel 26.

Poor Steve is stuck in a tape loop on the old anistemi matter, I see. Well, for a start, pea-brain, it's Matthew 12:32, not 12:23, where aion doesn't appear at all. And yet again we see your unbelievable inability to understand the English language. JP does not state that aion appears twice; he states that both cases of the word "world" are aion, which is correct. Further, the second instance of aion is grammatically implied anyway in the construction "en tw mellonti" ("in the coming one").

Stick to "See Spot Run", Steve, you might do better.

[bdtayl]

[\i]
TimTaylor
<snip yet more of Holding's off-topic rambling>


Tim Taylor
The points you made about Alexander TO DISTINGUISH HIM FROM
NEBUCHADREZZAR apply to Nebuchadrezzar.

Holding
I should say, snip of repeated argument already addressed;

Tim Taylor
I'll consider this a concession on this point, since you refuse to address the argument


Tim Taylor
I welcome everyone here to go review my first post, WHERE I BROUGHT YOUR APPENDIX UP AND DEALT WITH THE ARGUMENTS.
Then they can look at your appendix and see the exact same words.

<Snip yet another Holding diversion>


Tim Taylor
Stop lying and diverting and address the bloody argument.

[i]Holding
&quot;Bloody&quot; is about the right word to describe the condition of your argument at this stage. I did address the arguments; you just don't like it. Like most in this crowd you have a habit of throwing alleged logical fallacies out as though they actually apply. Very well, to expose the full absurdity:

Tim Taylor
I just looked through Copi's "Introduction to Logic", and I can't find snipping, evasion, and ad hominem as valid rebuttal methods.

Can you refer me to the right page to find this?

Or is your rebuttal metaphorical?


Tim Taylor
So, this is Holdings ;no true Scotsman.&quot; Since Ezekiel refers to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as &quot;horses, chariots, horsemen, a company, and much people&quot; in Chapter 26 but as an &quot;army&quot; in Chapter 29, Till's analogy can't be used.

Holding
That's right, it can't. Because Ez. 26 and Ez. 29 are different oracles. There is therefore no &quot;ad hoc&quot; change in midstream.

Tim Taylor
That's a good way to deal with a no true Scotsman, repeat it!

The fact that they are two different oracles is irrelevant.

Tim Taylor
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

Holding
No it doesn't, because they are immediately subsumed under Neb's identity. Same point. Still not addressed by you.


Tim Taylor
In both cases, the forces are subsumed under his identity.

Now, why don't you grow up, return to my original post, and do a point-by-point rebuttal to this point, or admit you can't?


Tim Taylor
Now, do your comments between the &amp;quot;====&amp;quot; here come from your appendix, YES, OR NO?

Holding
Oh, yes, they do! :rofl:

Tim Taylor
Thank you for admitting you are a liar.

Holding
Now, do the facts you allegedly ripped from my creation accounts article match what is actually IN the article, YES, OR NO? Be sure and edit this comment as &quot;diversionary crap&quot; and pretend it doesn't make a salient point about your techniques.

Tim Taylor
No, I'll leave it one one more time to show what a forsensic joke you are. Instead of addressing the argument at hand, you would rather concentrate on something that occured years ago on another list.

Now read very carefully. I came here to rip you to pieces on Tyre and to show that your consistent technique in debate is to divert attention away from your horrid reasoning.

Thank you for accomodating me.

I am taking your repeated attempts at irrelevamcy as an admission you are unable to rebut my points in part (1). So, unless Dee dee disagrees, I will post part (2).

[stevencarrwork]

02-22-2003 @ 02:53 PM
jpholding:

In waddles Stevie Carr, still looking for that nose gremlin he misplaced and someone who thinks sun dogs don't look like suns,

I'm not sure I always trust Holding's grasp of other langages. He has a remarkable habit of double-vision, seeing words which are not there.

Too bad for your master, Stevie, that cite you gave is an example of his &quot;90% of your website&quot; careless reading skills. &quot;World&quot; is aion in both cases. I said nothing about it being in the text twice.


The word 'aion' is not used in both cases! It is astonishing that Holding can look at a verse which uses the word 'aion' once, and say it is used in both cases. Can't Holding read? How can Holding have difficulty with the word 'both'? It is such a simple word - just 4 letters long!

However, I'm sure Holding will give us the Greek text, and tell us where 'aion' is used in both cases. Child's play for him! I look forward with keen anticipation to him pointing out 'both' uses of the word 'aion'.

[stevencarrwork]

02-22-2003 @ 04:48 PM
johnransom:



Poor Steve is stuck in a tape loop on the old anistemi matter, I see. Well, for a start, pea-brain, it's Matthew 12:32, not 12:23, where aion doesn't appear at all. And yet again we see your unbelievable inability to understand the English language. JP does not state that aion appears twice; he states that both cases of the word &quot;world&quot; are aion, which is correct. Further, the second instance of aion is grammatically implied anyway in the construction &quot;en tw mellonti&quot; (&quot;in the coming one&quot;).



Of course, 23 was a mere typo for 32.

And 'aion' is used once, and once only in verse 32.

There is only one case of the word 'aion' in verse 32, so there is no such thing as both cases. One is not two!

You yourself typed an entirely different word and said that 'aion' was used when it was not used.

Perhaps in a language you might understand :-

' in dieser Welt, und auch in der folgenden'. Here the word 'Welt' (world) is used once. It is not used in both cases. Count the number of times 'world' is used. If you get past one, then you have miscounted. 'Welt' might be implied, but it is not used and it is not present.

Or in English (assuming you know no foreign languages)

'In this world and also in the coming' Here the world 'world' is used once and once only. Count the number of times 'world' is used. If you get past one, then you have miscounted.

Sometimes I really wonder if all the Christians on this thread can read. Certainly they have trouble counting!

[geebob]

For, it is not "skeptics and critics" that recognise that Ezekiel 26.12 refers to Nebuchadnezzar. It is the vast majority of top Christian commentators on Ezekiel that recognise this.

many (but not all) open theists (a type of free will theism) like it too.

[WhiteShadow]

After sitting down and reading many of JP's interactions on this forum, and both sides ending up saying the other hadn't addressed the other's arguments...I decided to go and read JP's whole article on Tyre for this thread and the responses...

Simple conclusion - JP wins hands down. Tim's stuff seems to be mostly irrelevant-already-addressed-but-I'll-repeat-it-anyway arguments.

But just to address one thing Tim said about Alexander not being mentioned in the text - it's irrelevant - the Bible prophecies that some nations will destroy Tyre...and some nations did. The point is simply whether the "they" in verse 12 refers back to the nations in verse 3. Which wasn't successfully addressed...

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, having found nowhere to hide, and so scuttles under the saddle and the rump that rides on it,

We have just witnessed Skeptical arrogance and gamesmanship to the intent desired. To wit:

If a Skeptic thinks you are lying, his response is:

"You are a liar!"
"Stop lying! Admit you are wrong!"

Contrarily, if a Skeptic lies, and you point it out to him, his response is:

"Stop the diversionary crap."
"Stop using red herrrings."
"I'll keep that lie the way it is."

Skeptical inconsistency is a marvelous sight to behold. :rofl: It happened with Doug Krueger, who just couldn't bring himself to admit that he thought Amalekites lived in "Amalekiteland", that he called a position by a Jewish scholar that of one unfamiliar with the texts. It happened with little Stevie Carr, who wanted to say that people who saw "suns" in sun dogs were self-deluded, and fell strangely silent when several people were found, including several intelligent people, who used that very description for them.

It happened on this very forum when FTill, the Almighty Master of these poor slaves, scrambled for excuses to explain why he misread a simple statement about payment for web articles.

Whenever they are caught, they evade and lie. Oh, not all now: Just this class who sit in FTill's thrall and listen to his every word. They're all alike, one after the other. Just listen for the stream of evasions from their mouths, the excuses, the pompous jackass braying that subs for actual argument, the declarations of victory even as they are clenched in the teeth of the dragon and nearly bitten in half, the call, "Tis only a flesh wound!" as they hop on one leg.

They are, however, also easy to trap. :dunce: Tiny Tim fell for this trap like the proverbial ton of bricks.

I'll consider this a concession on this point, since you refuse to address the argument

Tiny Tim, you have little choice since you can win no other way than to fantasize concessions.

The fact that they are two different oracles is irrelevant.

So indeed is your fantasy. Each is an independent unit written at far different times. They have their own self-contained pattern and it is a patent absurdity to attempt to compare them as FTill has and as you have uncritically followed in doing.

Now, why don't you grow up, return to my original post, and do a point-by-point rebuttal to this point, or admit you can't?

There is little use in rebutting phantom arguments by someone unskilled and unaware of it, who substitutes posturing and repetition for answers. :rofl: Oh, I will answer all right, yea even again, but I shall do so in the article itself, and I shall make you the second He Who Shall Not be Named. A patent liar who when directly confronted thrice refuses to admit his confusion/misrepresentation, even claims to want to maintain it proudly, is not worth naming. The presence of your name would soil the server.

Thank you for admitting you are a liar.

Thank you for not admitting that you are. It does far more to destroy your credibility and consistency rating than even the most anachronistic argument you have presented here.

Instead of addressing the argument at hand, you would rather concentrate on something that occured years ago on another list.

Ah. Now let us take my theoretical "lie" here. If we wait a few years, and we talk on another list, does that mean that it is no longer a lie I need apologize for?

A skilled rationalizer in his Master's mold. :rofl:

Now read very carefully. I came here to rip you to pieces on Tyre and to show that your consistent technique in debate is to divert attention away from your horrid reasoning.

I read it. It is very funny. The gyrations of those off their meds usually are.

I am taking your repeated attempts at irrelevamcy as an admission you are unable to rebut my points in part (1). So, unless Dee dee disagrees, I will post part (2).

Post what you please. I'm answering on the site within the week. It happens that I have not actually read the article in a while, and I see some places where I now know of much simpler and more effective answers. Less spectacular in terms of prophetic fulfillment, but only those in the center of their own universe care.

You are a small nuisance to me, Tiny Tim. I have a small dog who barks louder than you. He also makes more sound arguments and doesn't think that "oh, yeah???" constitutes an answer.

In sum, you are a waste of my time. :yipee:

[jimbo]

To A Wonderful Christian Apologist,

Whenever they are caught, they evade and lie. Oh, not all now: Just this class who sit in FTill's thrall and listen to his every word. They're all alike, one after the other. Just listen for the stream of evasions from their mouths, the excuses, the pompous jackass braying that subs for actual argument, the declarations of victory even as they are clenched in the teeth of the dragon and nearly bitten in half, the call, "Tis only a flesh wound!" as they hop on one leg.

I hope you hold strongly to your Christian beliefs and keep trying to defend the Bible because Bible skeptics love you. Don't ever lose your faith in Jesus!

All the best,

Jimbo : )

[johnransom]

02-22-2003 @ 12:15 PM
stevencarrwork:



Of course, 23 was a mere typo for 32.

And 'aion' is used once, and once only in verse 32.

There is only one case of the word 'aion' in verse 32, so there is no such thing as both cases. One is not two!

You yourself typed an entirely different word and said that 'aion' was used when it was not used.

Ah, so when Stevie makes an error, it's a 'mere typo". Can you say "double standard", boys and girls?

:argh: And back we go to Stevie's reading comprehension skills problem. No one - neither I nor JP - said "aion" was in there twice. What was said was that "world" is in there twice (did your Mommy teach you to count to two yet, Stevie?). That is, in case you are failing to comprehend this very simple matter, not the same thing. it's called amplification and it's there to provide clarity. Although it doesn't seem to be helping you. Tsk tsk, slap on the wrist and a "could do better" on the report card for those naughty KJV translators who were supposed to make everything crystal clear for a 21st century anachronizing atheist.

In other words, you are merely repeating your same claim in the face of full and conclusive rebuttal. A fair demonstration of a basic definition of insanity.

Perhaps in a language you might understand :-

' in dieser Welt, und auch in der folgenden'. Here the word 'Welt' (world) is used once. It is not used in both cases. Count the number of times 'world' is used. If you get past one, then you have miscounted. 'Welt' might be implied, but it is not used and it is not present.

Or in English (assuming you know no foreign languages)

'In this world and also in the coming' Here the world 'world' is used once and once only. Count the number of times 'world' is used. If you get past one, then you have miscounted.

Sometimes I really wonder if all the Christians on this thread can read. Certainly they have trouble counting!

Actually, yes, thank you, German is a language I understand, as the course description on my Cambridge master's diploma states. That, along with French and about a dozen other languages, ancient and modern, in varying degrees of fluency. So...that's thirteen, plus English, makes me fourteen languages ahead of you.:bonk: Oh gosh, lookee there - I can count as well.

[stevencarrwork]

02-23-2003 @ 06:13 AM
johnransom:



Ah, so when Stevie makes an error, it's a 'mere typo&quot;. Can you say &quot;double standard&quot;, boys and girls?



Anybody can see that 23 can easily be a typo for 23.

02-23-2003 @ 06:13 AM
johnransom:


:argh: And back we go to Stevie's reading comprehension skills problem. No one - neither I nor JP - said &quot;aion&quot; was in there twice. What was said was that &quot;world&quot; is in there twice (did your Mommy teach you to count to two yet, Stevie?). That is, in case you are failing to comprehend this very simple matter, not the same thing. it's called amplification and it's there to provide clarity. Although it doesn't seem to be helping you. Tsk tsk, slap on the wrist and a &quot;could do better&quot; on the report card for those naughty KJV translators who were supposed to make everything crystal clear for a 21st century anachronizing atheist.

In other words, you are merely repeating your same claim in the face of full and conclusive rebuttal. A fair demonstration of a basic definition of insanity.



You still haven't told me where the two cases of 'world' in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32 are.

You keep repeating the claim that there are two cases of the word 'world' in the Greek text.

All you have to do is post the Greek text , and tell us where the Greek for 'world' is used twice. Go on, I dare you........

http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Mat/Mat012.html Just click on 'c' for concordance and anybody can see that 'world' only appears once in the Greek text.

As you point out, the KJV translators amplified the text by adding the word 'world' to a Greek text which used it once, thereby producing an English text which used it twice, thereby confusing JP Holding.

[stevencarrwork]

02-23-2003 @ 06:13 AM
johnransom:



Actually, yes, thank you, German is a language I understand, as the course description on my Cambridge master's diploma states. That, along with French and about a dozen other languages, ancient and modern, in varying degrees of fluency. So...that's thirteen, plus English, makes me fourteen languages ahead of you.:bonk: Oh gosh, lookee there - I can count as well.

Gosh, what a coincidence that there are two Cambridge men on this thread. I was at Churchill (or Madingley Tech, as its nickname was as that time). Which college did you go to? What did you read?

Actually, Cambridge wrote to me offering me a master's degree, but like many people, I could not be bothered buying one.

But since then, I think you do actually have to study something to get a master's degree (shame!) What did you study to get your master's diploma?

Ich spreche fliessend Deutsch, aber ich wuerde zweifeln, dass mein Deutschkenntnis reicht, um weiter fuer die Masterszertifikat zu studierien. Ich bin eigentlich eifersuchtig, dass Sie so fortgeschritten sind, dass Sie Deutsch zu Mastersniveau gelernt haben, und zwar bei der besten Universitaet der Welt (natuerlich habe ich hier Vorurteile!)


Ich bin neugierig zu lernen, was man eigentlich tun muss, um diese Zertifikat zu bekommen, und bin gespannt auf Ihrer Antwort.

[WhiteShadow]

Gosh, what a coincidence that there are two Cambridge men on this thread. I was at Churchill (or Madingley Tech, as its nickname was as that time). Which college did you go to? What did you read?

Actually, there are three of us... I'm currently reading Maths at Queens'...

[stevencarrwork]

02-23-2003 @ 04:36 PM
WhiteShadow:



Actually, there are three of us... I'm currently reading Maths at Queens'...

Nice to meet a true Englishman who puts the 's' on Maths, and the apostrophe after the 's' in Queens'

Queens' was a nice college to visit. Churchill was , from the point of view of architechure, so dull. Mind you, I think Clare, both old and new parts is the nicest.

I wonder which College John Ransom went to.

[bdtayl]

02-23-2003 @ 01:07 AM
WhiteShadow:


WS
After sitting down and reading many of JP's interactions on this forum, and both sides ending up saying the other hadn't addressed the other's arguments...I decided to go and read JP's whole article on Tyre for this thread and the responses...

Simple conclusion - JP wins hands down. Tim's stuff seems to be mostly irrelevant-already-addressed-but-I'll-repeat-it-anyway arguments.


Tim Taylor
After sitting down and reading this response, I find it contains no substantive points. Therefore, it is irrelevant.

WS
But just to address one thing Tim said about Alexander not being mentioned in the text - it's irrelevant - the Bible prophecies that some nations will destroy Tyre...and some nations did. The point is simply whether the &quot;they&quot; in verse 12 refers back to the nations in verse 3. Which wasn't successfully addressed...


Tim Taylor
Perhaps you should read it, because I did address it. The "they"
refers to his forces, which are "many nations" or the more specifically deliniated forces just prior to the "they."

Now, formulate an argument .

[bdtayl]

Tim Taylor
<snip ad hominem>

Holding
We have just witnessed Skeptical arrogance and gamesmanship to the intent desired. To wit:

If a Skeptic thinks you are lying, his response is:

&quot;You are a liar!&quot;
&quot;Stop lying! Admit you are wrong!&quot;

Tim Taylor
Except I showed where you lied in this thread. If you think I need
or want to go back to show where you lied 3 years ago to give you a diversion, you are sadly mistken

<snip yet more irrelevant crap completely unrelated to Tyre where [EDITED] blabbers on about F. Till>



Tim Taylor
I'll consider this a concession on this point, since you refuse to address the argument


<snip ad hominem>


Tim Taylor
The fact that they are two different oracles is irrelevant.

Holding
So indeed is your fantasy.

Tim Taylor
No, actually my fantasy is to have you posit an argument in an open forum.

Holding
Each is an independent unit written at far different times.

Tim Taylor
And Shaemus doesn't put sugar on his porridge! I love it!

Holding
They have their own self-contained pattern and it is a patent absurdity to attempt to compare them as FTill has and as you have uncritically followed in doing.

Tim Taylor
The issue is Ezekiel's writing style, not when he wrote it, or what oracle he wrote. You are capable of just about everything it seems, except addressing an opponent's argument.

Readers are more than welcome to read my dismantling of your
"apologetic" that included the comparitive verses.


Tim Taylor
Now, why don't you grow up, return to my original post, and do a point-by-point rebuttal to this point, or admit you can't?

Holding
There is little use in rebutting phantom arguments by someone unskilled and unaware of it, who substitutes posturing and repetition for answers.

Tim Taylor
But you first claimed I had never addressed your appendix. In fact you said I had snipped it and completely ignored it.

Now that you've been proven a liar, you're switching horses. Are Christians so desperate they need to count on this nonentity of a debater?

Holding
:rofl: Oh, I will answer all right, yea even again, but I shall do so in the article itself, and I shall make you the second He Who Shall Not be Named. A patent liar who when directly confronted thrice refuses to admit his confusion/misrepresentation, even claims to want to maintain it proudly, is not worth naming. The presence of your name would soil the server.

Tim Taylor
Let me translate this for readers. I'm a chicken who simply does not have the capability to posit convincing arguments. I have to
go back to my cloister, lock the door, take people's writings out of context, mischaracterize what they said, and reply to strawman arguments.

<snip more irrelevant blather>

Holding
You are a small nuisance to me, Tiny Tim. I have a small dog who barks louder than you. He also makes more sound arguments and doesn't think that &quot;oh, yeah???&quot; constitutes an answer.


Tim Taylor
When I started this demolition of your Tyre "apologetic", I never dreamed you would be such a weak and pathetic opponent.

This list has over 150 members and the other 2 lists I posted it to have over 100 members each. So, that's over 300 people who will see what an absolute coward you are.

Your antics won't stop me from continuing your demolition right here where everyone can see it.

You see, I have the balls to actually let people read what I wrote
without retreating to my cloister.

All the evasions, hand waving, lying, snipping, and intellectual cowardice in the world won't change the transparency of your
inability to debate honestly.

Holding
In sum, you are a waste of my time. :yipee: [/QUOTE]

Tim Taylor
A statement contradicited by the fact that you are "summarizing" my posts and replying to them in your monastery with locked doors.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for helping skepticism. Every one of your snip jobs, diversions, ad hominems,
evasions, and logical fallacies too numerous to count do more to damage Christianity than 100 posts by skeptics.

Thanks JP, and keep up the good work.

Oh yes, and finally, please examine "fair use" closely before you
try to use my materials WITHOUT PROPERLY CITING THE SOURCE. And no "unnamed skeptic" is not a proper attribution.

To Christians on this list:

Does a true defender of the faith really need to prevent visitors to his website from knowing the real source of his
opponent's arguments?

[johnransom]

02-23-2003 @ 05:11 AM
stevencarrwork:

Anybody can see that 23 can easily be a typo for 23.

Ah. But a typographical error in JP's Greek Bible is not OK? Especially considering JP is self-confessedly not a Greek expert?

You still haven't told me where the two cases of 'world' in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32 are.

You keep repeating the claim that there are two cases of the word 'world' in the Greek text.

All you have to do is post the Greek text , and tell us where the Greek for 'world' is used twice. Go on, I dare you........

http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Mat/Mat012.html Just click on 'c' for concordance and anybody can see that 'world' only appears once in the Greek text.

As you point out, the KJV translators amplified the text by adding the word 'world' to a Greek text which used it once, thereby producing an English text which used it twice, thereby confusing JP Holding.

Man, is this a slog. Let's try again: NO ONE said that "aion" appears twice. WORLD, as you finally admit, does appear twice. So drop it.

02-23-2003 @ 07:13 AM
stevencarrwork:



Gosh, what a coincidence that there are two Cambridge men on this thread. I was at Churchill (or Madingley Tech, as its nickname was as that time)...

Well that explains your lack of reading comprehension.

[johnransom]

02-23-2003 @ 07:13 AM
stevencarrwork:



Gosh, what a coincidence that there are two Cambridge men on this thread. I was at Churchill (or Madingley Tech, as its nickname was as that time). Which college did you go to? What did you read?

Actually, Cambridge wrote to me offering me a master's degree, but like many people, I could not be bothered buying one.

But since then, I think you do actually have to study something to get a master's degree (shame!) What did you study to get your master's diploma?

Ich spreche fliessend Deutsch, aber ich wuerde zweifeln, dass mein Deutschkenntnis reicht, um weiter fuer die Masterszertifikat zu studierien. Ich bin eigentlich eifersuchtig, dass Sie so fortgeschritten sind, dass Sie Deutsch zu Mastersniveau gelernt haben, und zwar bei der besten Universitaet der Welt (natuerlich habe ich hier Vorurteile!)


Ich bin neugierig zu lernen, was man eigentlich tun muss, um diese Zertifikat zu bekommen, und bin gespannt auf Ihrer Antwort.

02-23-2003 @ 10:36 AM
WhiteShadow:



Actually, there are three of us... I'm currently reading Maths at Queens'...

(OK, this is now the 3rd time I've written this, thanks to my 16 month old...) I was graduated from St. John's in 1984 and I donn't have a clue as to the current Masters requirements. Probably a lot less than way back then (although I got mine the old-fashioned way - but given other schools' requirements, it was highly justified in those days). Also, of course, everyone at St' John's also got a free degree in Athletics.

As to your German, ich bin ja beeindruckt, but that's about as much as my typing skills are going to let me scrape together in any language other than English. BTW, the normal word for fluent in this sense is fluessig, although fliessend is OK.

[dizzle]

Dear Tim:

To Christians on this list:

Does a true defender of the faith really need to prevent visitors to his website from knowing the real source of his
opponent's arguments?

Do you really believe that spin? Do you really believe that the reason that JP has chosen to refer to people at times with such designations as "unnamed sceptic" is because he does not want people to know who is the source of certain arguments? Are you really that satirically impaired? Come on.

[stevencarrwork]

02-24-2003 @ 12:28 AM
johnransom:





Man, is this a slog. Let's try again: NO ONE said that &quot;aion&quot; appears twice. WORLD, as you finally admit, does appear twice. So drop it.



Well that explains your lack of reading comprehension.

'World' does not, repeat not, appear twice in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32. Stop saying it does! This is partly because 'world' is an English word, and partly because there is only one case of the Greek for 'world' in the text, even though Holding said there were two cases.

Unless you really are claiming that Mr. Holding looked at the *English* translation, saw 'world' appearing 'twice' and claimed that the same *Greek* word was used for a word , which was no more than an addition by the KJV translators .......

BTW, 'fluessig' means 'liquid' (adjective). To speak a language 'flowingly', one normally says 'fliessend'. 'Fluessig' is much rarer in this context. Normally you don't speak liquid German, one speaks 'flowing' German . Interesting that you have a Cambridge Master's diploma which mentions German. What was your Master's in?

[bdtayl]

Dee Dee
Dear Tim:

Do you really believe that spin? Do you [i]really believe that the reason that JP has chosen to refer to people at times

Tim
Please be accurate. In Till's case (and soon to be mine)
it won't be "at times" it will be all cases.

Dee Dee
with such designations as &quot;unnamed sceptic&quot; is because he does not want people to know who is the source of certain arguments? Are you really that satirically impaired? Come on. [/QUOTE]

Tim Taylor
I notice you did not answer my question. I believe he has chosen to refer to them in that fashion for the same reason he does not provide links. He does not want visitors to see the complete unedited versions of his opponent's text.

If his opponent's arguments are so poor, then he has nothing to fear by providing links and names.

Please answer another question Dee Dee. Do you have a problem with properly attributing arguments to those who made them?

Dee Dee, I'm not going to get into a lengthy debate on Holding's tactics. I simply will not allow attention to be diverted from his horrible Tyre apologetic.

[dizzle]

Dear Tim:

You were up bright and early this morning!!

02-24-2003 @ 06:13 AM
bdtayl:

Please be accurate. In Till's case (and soon to be mine)
it won't be &quot;at times&quot; it will be all cases.[/i]

I am referring to the state of things as they exist now. Till is noted quite frequently at JP's site. I do not know his plans for the future, and it really does not concern me. I was commenting upon your comment. I am not going to mine the subjunctive. I also am not commenting on the copyright propreity of such a move on JP's part, just calling into question your blanket analysis of his motives which seems quite presumptous to me.


I notice you did not answer my question. I believe he has chosen to refer to them in that fashion for the same reason he does not provide links. He does not want visitors to see the complete unedited versions of his opponent's text.

So you are that satirically impaired! Thank you for clearing that up. And JP has addressed the links issue numerous times. See the funny thing is Tim is that I am computer idiot. However, in my time as a moderator at a debate forum, I have had sometimes to figure out if someone's lengthy post was simply a copy job from someone's work without giving the citation for the original source as is forum rules... so guess what this idiot does? I find a unique phrase in the document and search for it!! And JP has provided links, so I would get off that tired horse and give it a good rest out in the pasture. If someone has enough brains to figure out how to get to Holding's site to begin with, they could find any article they chose to.


If his opponent's arguments are so poor, then he has nothing to fear by providing links and names.

Begging the question and cheap psychologizing.

Please answer another question Dee Dee. Do you have a problem with properly attributing arguments to those who made them?

Do you have a problem understanding satire?


Dee Dee, I'm not going to get into a lengthy debate on Holding's tactics. I simply will not allow attention to be diverted from his horrible Tyre apologetic.

That is fine with me. I just wanted to know if you were that satirically impaired and you have cleared that up for me. I also would prefer that this thread stick on the issue at hand as well and not be diverted into speculations about motives and counting words. You as the thread starter have that perogative.....

[johnransom]

02-24-2003 @ 01:43 AM
stevencarrwork:



'World' does not, repeat not, appear twice in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32. Stop saying it does! This is partly because 'world' is an English word, and partly because there is only one case of the Greek for 'world' in the text, even though Holding said there were two cases.

Unless you really are claiming that Mr. Holding looked at the *English* translation, saw 'world' appearing 'twice' and claimed that the same *Greek* word was used for a word , which was no more than an addition by the KJV translators .......

Finally he gets it!!!

BTW, 'fluessig' means 'liquid' (adjective). To speak a language 'flowingly', one normally says 'fliessend'. 'Fluessig' is much rarer in this context. Normally you don't speak liquid German, one speaks 'flowing' German . Interesting that you have a Cambridge Master's diploma which mentions German. What was your Master's in?

Personally, I never heard a German use fliessend, but I did live in some fairly wierd dialectal areas of Germany (the Ruhr and Black Forest). As I said, both are OK.

As for what's written on my diplomas, it's been so long since I last looked at them, I really can't tell you what they say my discipline was. I think they say Languages and Linguistics, although the BA may say French and German. My course work was a hodge podge of historical French and German together with modern post-Chomsky structural linguistics.

[jpholding]

In rides little Stevie Carr, still not telling us how deluded those sundog people are,

You still haven't told me where the two cases of 'world' in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32 are.

You still haven't grapsed that I never said such a thing. "World" appears twice in the KJV. Aion represents both, and that is what I said.

As you point out, the KJV translators amplified the text by adding the word 'world' to a Greek text which used it once, thereby producing an English text which used it twice, thereby confusing JP Holding.

It is you and your ilk who constantly sow confusion by inserting arguments into people's mouths and making fools of yourself ("deluded sundog seers", etc). Drop it now and save your reputation yet another black eye.
:bonk:

[jpholding]

Now in rides Tiny Tim, on a mouse and eating lots of cheese with his mouth open,

Except I showed where you lied in this thread.

You have yet to prove any such thing. :rofl: But you are being manipulated, and are falling for it even to this day. I didn't lie, Tiny Tim. Guess what actually happened. I'll tell you if you admit your mistake on the Genesis article, but if you don't, I'll just keep letting you embarrass yourself with this double standard bulldada.

If you think I need or want to go back to show where you lied 3 years ago to give you a diversion, you are sadly mistken

Of course you don't "want" to. You want to play the double standard game, which is exactly what I wanted to show. If it's you who lies and we point it out: "Irrelevant diversion". If you think I lie: "You lied." From now on, I not only trample you arrogant Tillites in argument, I will also expose your moral fallacies. This will be beaten into the ground until you die, and then it will be beaten into the ground some more.

And Shaemus doesn't put sugar on his porridge! I love it!

My argument is the equal of proving that Shaemus is genetically a Nubian, and all you can do is re-assert that it didn't. Bless you, my son!

The issue is Ezekiel's writing style, not when he wrote it, or what oracle he wrote.

And his style is vastly different in each oracle, as I pointed out, and to which you are patently oblivious. When does make a difference, as FTill's argument rests upon a goofy assumption that Zeke wrote the latter oracle -- 17 years later! -- with the same linguistic patterns in mind! It acts as though Zeke banged out all of his book at one sitting, from the idea that as we sit and read from 26 to 29 in the space of a few minutes, so likewise Zeke wrote it!

I found even more to confirm this, and will post it online.

But you first claimed I had never addressed your appendix. In fact you said I had snipped it and completely ignored it.

Hint: You are being manipulated into showing your true nature.

I'm a chicken who simply does not have the capability to posit convincing arguments.

You have said so of yourself.

I have to go back to my cloister

Like FTill keeps going back to Errancy and always demanded that people come to him? Naive little horse, I will advise here when I have made an update. Go ahead and post your next section so I can have something to do that will take more than 10 minutes to reply to.

lock the door

Gosh heck, people here don't know how to find things. Or maybe only Skeptics can't.

take people's writings out of context, mischaracterize what they said, and reply to strawman arguments.

Still waiting for actual examples. I demand three in another thread and you reply, <snip more irrelevant blather> and such. :rofl: Keep it up.

When I started this demolition of your Tyre "apologetic", I never dreamed you would be such a weak and pathetic opponent.

I could say, <snip pompous example of deluded self-competence>

Your antics won't stop me from continuing your demolition right here where everyone can see it.

I like it that way. I like people seeing your double standard.

You see, I have the balls to actually let people read what I wrote without retreating to my cloister.

They must be bouncing pretty high right now, as deluded as you seem to be and as much pain as you seem to be in.

A statement contradicited by the fact that you are "summarizing" my posts and replying to them in your monastery with locked doors.

You are a waste of my time here because of your deluded self-aggrandizing. Yes, it does waste less time to do it elsewhere and not have to listen to your teenaged prattle.

Oh yes, and finally, please examine "fair use" closely before you try to use my materials WITHOUT PROPERLY CITING THE SOURCE. And no "unnamed skeptic" is not a proper attribution.

Oh yes, I've decided not to quote you at all. I will just address your alleged arguments with positive affirmations and dial around fair use issues altogether. The fate a nameless and useless prattler deserves. Whatever grasp of "logic" you think you have is rendered irrelevant by your patently obvious will to lie and evade and apply a double standard.

Does a true defender of the faith really need to prevent visitors to his website from knowing the real source of his opponent's arguments?

Gosh, some Skeptics are so full of mental disabilities that keep them from finding things. If they're that ignorant, little wonder they're feeling threatened. :rofl: See how easy this game is?

[Snowball]

Tim:
This list has over 150 members and the other 2 lists I posted it to have over 100 members each. So, that's over 300 people who will see what an absolute coward you are.


As one of the members that will supposedly see all of this...I'll let you know when/if it happens! What I do see is Tim getting beaten into the ground and then denying it, as I'm sure anyone else can see also.

Honestly, Tim, I looked at both your arguments and JP's, and found that he is being way too patient with you. You and Till have that in common, in that if a question is not answered the way you want it to (which can't happen, apparently, without fully agreeing with you), then you go around saying it wasn't answered. I can't believe that either of you actually think you are fooling anybody.

Stevie:
'World' does not, repeat not, appear twice in the Greek text of Matthew 12:32. Stop saying it does! This is partly because 'world' is an English word, and partly because there is only one case of the Greek for 'world' in the text, even though Holding said there were two cases.


Let's look at what JP originally said that caused this (hopefully) misunderstanding:
'And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." "World" in both cases is aion. '


I can't believe you still don't get what Holding and johnransom were saying. Honestly, before I came here I thought that Holding had to be exaggerating when he described skeptics. I now see he is dead on. The word "world" appears twice in the ENGLISH text, as anyone can see, and that is what JP was referring to! Stevie, they're not kidding when they ask if you have a reading comprehension problem!

These forums have really enlightened me -- I used to give skeptics the benefit of the doubt and felt for sure that Holding must be exaggerating their weaknesses for the purposes of satire. Now I see I was wrong. Thanks for clearing things up for me. :eek:

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-24-2003 @ 05:16 PM
Snowball:

Snowball
As one of the members that will supposedly see all of this...I'll let you know when/if it happens! What I do see is Tim getting beaten into the ground and then denying it, as I'm sure anyone else can see also.

Tim Taylor
Since he has posted no arguments in response to my rebuttals, I guess this would make your statement flat wrong wouldn't it?

Now, read carefully snowball. Post an example of what you're talking about.

Snowball
Honestly, Tim, I looked at both your arguments and JP's, and found that he is being way too patient with you. You and Till have that in common, in that if a question is not answered the way you want it to (which can't happen, apparently, without fully agreeing with you), then you go around saying it wasn't answered. I can't believe that either of you actually think you are fooling anybody.

Tim Taylor
People with integrity are not fooled by people incapable of posting an example, and since Holding has not replied with anything but ad hominem, evasion, and snipping, this post of yours is nothing but posturing.

So, I dare you to post an example to support your claim above.

<snip>

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, still not on his meds and still deluded,

Since he has posted no arguments in response to my rebuttals, I guess this would make your statement flat wrong wouldn't it?

I posted all that was necessary. You have replied only by repeating yourself.

Now, read carefully snowball.

We all read carefully here. It's the same Skeptical delusion that gosh, since they're not convinced, they must be dumb, stupid, blind, not reading it, etc.

posting an example, and since Holding has not replied with anything but ad hominem, evasion, and snipping, this post of yours is nothing but posturing.

I could say, <snip groundless and hypocritical evasion>

So, I dare you to post an example to support your claim above.

Your repeated blattering the the Scotty fallacy, when it has been shown irrelevant, is enough. It's the only actual argument you have posted.

Going to fess up to your lie on the Genesis article anytime soon?

[bdtayl]

Tim
<snip Holding's crap>



Tim
And Shaemus doesn't put sugar on his porridge! I love it!

Holding
My argument is the equal of proving that Shaemus is genetically a Nubian, and all you can do is re-assert that it didn't. Bless you, my son!

Tim Taylor
Rebut post one, or admit you can't.

Tim Taylor
The issue is Ezekiel's writing style, not when he wrote it, or what oracle he wrote.

Holding
And his style is vastly different in each oracle, as I pointed out, and to which you are patently oblivious.

Tim Taylor
And as I pointed out, and you refuse to rebut, it is very similar where it counts. Perhaps if you didn't fill your posts with so much irrelevant crap, you'd have more of your 12000 word limit to actually quote my arguments and addres them.

Holding
When does make a difference, as FTill's argument rests upon a goofy assumption that Zeke wrote the latter oracle -- 17 years later! -- with the same linguistic patterns in mind! It acts as though Zeke banged out all of his book at one sitting, from the idea that as we sit and read from 26 to 29 in the space of a few minutes, so likewise Zeke wrote it!

Tim Taylor
Holding's argument (This is a syllogism. I thought you might like to know what one looks like)

1. Ezekiel wrote oracles 17 years apart.
2. Therefore any similarities in writing style can be discounted.

Now, go get a logic book and look up "non sequitur"

The easiest way to rebut my arguments would be to GO BACK MY FIRST POST and attack it directly, but you refuse to do that.

Instead, you keep hiding behind recharacterizations of what you wrote, and what I wrote.


Tim Taylor
But you first claimed I had never addressed your appendix. In fact you said I had snipped it and completely ignored it.

Holding
Hint: You are being manipulated into showing your true nature.

Tim Taylor
And you continue to affirm you are a liar and a foresnic joke.

Tim Taylor (characterizing Holding's methods)
I'm a chicken who simply does not have the capability to posit convincing arguments.

Holding
You have said so of yourself.

Tim Taylor
Yes, about you, and every time you post, you confirm it.

Since the remainder of this post is nothing but the usual diversionary nonsense, I've snipped it.

Barring further replies on (1) and (2), tomorrow I'll continue picking your "apologetic" to pieces.

[Snowball]

So, I dare you to post an example to support your claim above.



Dare taken -- against my better judgement, since you don't seem to be able to understand sound argumentation. But, here goes:

Tim reads (not very carefully) Holding's article on Tyre, available here: http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_05_03.htm
then proceeds to make arguments against it that had already been addressed in the original article in question. When JP pointed this out to Tim, Tim still cries about JP not answering the argument! The point of your original post (and your being here in the first place) is that you don't like JP's answer. Fine. You'd come off much better if you just said so and got on with your life.

Since you specifically asked for an example, here is one:
Tim's original post said:
Holding
Issue #1 - Who Are "They"?
"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise.." (NIV)
This verse is pivotal to many of the arguments of each side. Our side would say that the "they" in v. 12 refers back the "nations" in v. 3-5, and were represented by Alexander the Great, who did the things described in v. 12, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Tim Taylor
Where is Alexander mentioned in the text? He isn’t.
Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.



JP's response was this:
That's right, and that's what I show later on, but you would hardly be who or what you are if you didn't try some pre-emptive manipulation. You learn your lessons well. Spare us the pre-emption prior to argument and data consideration.



So, let's go back to the original article and see if Holding did in fact show, later on, IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, why "Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 305, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12", as he said he did. Here is a quote from the article in question:

A key here is that the "they" in v. 12 can only refer to the "nations" in v. 3. Let's see how this is so.

Verse 3: The nations are mentioned.
Verse 4: The nations are referenced as "they."
Verse 7: Nebbie is introduced, along with his horses, chariots, horsemen, and army.
Verse 8: Says "HE will ravage your settlements on the mainland...HE will set up siege works against you (etc.)" At this point we see the personification of Nebbie in his forces begin. Obviously, Nebbie did not PERSONALLY do the things described while his army sat by and sipped coconuts.
Verse 9: says "HE will direct the blows of his battering ram..." Same as above; unless we want to argue that Nebbie only used his personal battering ram which he didn't let anyone else use.
Verses 10-11: "His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons and chariots when HE enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. The hoofs of his horses will trample all your streets; HE will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground." Here we see two more cases where Nebbie's forces are personified under singular references to himself.
Now the key verse:

Verse 12: "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise..." We may note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12. Skeptics would have us apply the "they" to the folks in v. 7. Aside from the fact that these folks have already been subsumed under Nebbie's pronoun, "HE," we may ask skeptics why they do not refer "they" to much closer words which agree in the plural sense and thus could be regarded as antecedents - for example, the "horses, wagons, and chariots" described in verses 10-11.


Hmmm...yeah it looks like he did, yet you continue to assert that he didn't answer this. :argh:

Unbelievable. Again, I have to wonder what JP would have to do, short of agreeing with you, to satisfy your need for an answer.

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny tim again, still smarting from his bouncing dubery dues after that ride on a Shetland pony,

Rebut post one, or admit you can't.

Been there. Done that. You no like answer and can't reply, too bad.

And as I pointed out, and you refuse to rebut, it is very similar where it counts.

I did rebut, by showing that it was not "similar" at all.

Perhaps if you didn't fill your posts with so much irrelevant crap, you'd have more of your 12000 word limit to actually quote my arguments and addres them.

Rebutting you takes only 12 words. Quality begets relevant quantity.

Holding's argument (This is a syllogism. I thought you might like to know what one looks like)

It looks like you playing with toys above your age level.

1. Ezekiel wrote oracles 17 years apart.
2. Therefore any similarities in writing style can be discounted.

Try again: "Therefore any similarities in writing style need to be critically analyzed and not merely assumed to prove some hackneyed point based on a surface appearance, as though one were in mind when the other were created." :dunce: It gets down to that the "similarities" are a product of FTill's wooden imagination and that he ignores the differences in the linguistic features of the two oracles. To say that Zeke used "they" in the same way 17 years later the way FTill did is an exercise in obscurity and question-begging, to say nothing of ignoring those key differences.

Now, go get a logic book and look up &quot;non sequitur&quot;

I did. I found your life's story.

The easiest way to rebut my arguments would be to GO BACK MY FIRST POST and attack it directly, but you refuse to do that.

Why repeat ourselves endlessly? I prove my point. You don't like it and pretend to do a logical analysis, which plays fast and loose with the data.

And you continue to affirm you are a liar and a foresnic joke.

I continue to expose your inconsistency and tendency to excuse away your patent lies. :rofl: Good show.

Since the remainder of this post is nothing but the usual diversionary nonsense, I've snipped it.

I.e., since it's me asking again if you admit to lying about the Genesis issue, you evaded it. We'll just keep reposting about it until you answer or perish in flames. Should be a familiar tactic, your master does it all the time.

Barring further replies on (1) and (2), tomorrow I'll continue picking your &quot;apologetic&quot; to pieces.

Knock thyself to pieces, Tiny Tim. :rofl:

[jpholding]

Snowball, thank you for your assistance. :smile:

I will be adding more material to that section of the essay, today if I get time. There are even more linguistic connections proving that Zeke in the 26 oracle regarded the parties of v 12 as different from Nebbie's army.

[bdtayl]

[/i]Tim Taylor
<snip more Holding blather>


Tim Taylor
Holding's argument (This is a syllogism. I thought you might like to know what one looks like)


<snip ad hominem>


Tim Taylor
1. Ezekiel wrote oracles 17 years apart.
2. Therefore any similarities in writing style can be discounted.

Holding
Try again:

Tim Taylor
No problem, this is what you wrote

Holding (previous):
Holding
When does make a difference, as FTill's argument rests upon a goofy assumption that Zeke wrote the latter oracle -- 17 years later!

Tim Taylor
I know, you didn't mean what you said.

<snip more blather>

Since you refuse to address it, here it is:

============
Tim Taylor
As Till has already pointed out, Ezekiel does reference his forces as "they" in Ezekiel 29. As shown here, your rebuttal was nothing but a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Here is the reference in question:

Ezekiel 29 (ASV)
18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor HIS army, from Tyre, for the service that HE served against it.

19
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and HE shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20
I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which HE served, because THEY wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

So, Ezekiel's use of "he" and "they" here torpedoes your argument. What was your "rebuttal" to this?

Holding
Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself.

Tim Taylor
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

If I remove all references to the resurrection on the Gospels, Jesus wasn't resurrected.

Holding
That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity,

Tim Taylor
Ezekiel 29:18 (ASV)
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army

compared to

Ezekiel 26:7 (ASV)
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and a company, and much people.

So, this is Holdings "no true Scotsman." Since Ezekiel refers to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "horses, chariots, horsemen, a company, and much people" in Chapter 26 but as an "army" in Chapter 29, Till's analogy can't be used. For those unfamiliar with the No True Scotsman, here is the definition (http://www.esgs.org/uk/logic.htm)

Ad hoc hypothesis: Hypothesis used to explain away facts that seem to refute one's theory. A special form of it is: "No true Scotsman. . .": an argument that takes the form of: "no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge", which is countered with "my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge", but is followed by the rejoinder, "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge"

Holding
in order to emphasize that "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed raw" - a simple, hyperbolic way of expressing how much trouble the army had to go to against Tyre. Three times (or maybe even four, depending on how you want to count) in the above passage Nebbie is paired with his army in a way that alludes to them as separate entities, and this gives a more than adequate reason for the use of "they" in the last sentence

Tim Taylor
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

<snip remainder of ad hoc fallacy>

Holding
Now the key verse:
Verse 12: "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise..." We may note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12. Skeptics would have us apply the "they" to the folks in v. 7. Aside from the fact that these folks have already been subsumed under Nebbie's pronoun, "HE,"

Tim Taylor
You mean the way his army was subsumed in "his" in Ezekiel 29:18?
==============

[bdtayl]

Tim Taylor
So, I dare you to post an example to support your claim above.


Snowball
Dare taken -- against my better judgement, since you don't seem to be able to understand sound argumentation. But, here goes:

Tim reads (not very carefully) Holding's article on Tyre, available here: http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_05_03.htm
then proceeds to make arguments against it that had already been addressed in the original article in question. When JP pointed this out to Tim, Tim still cries about JP not answering the argument! The point of your original post (and your being here in the first place) is that you don't like JP's answer. Fine. You'd come off much better if you just said so and got on with your life.

Since you specifically asked for an example, here is one:
Tim's original post said:
quote:

Holding
Issue #1 - Who Are "They"?
"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise.." (NIV)
This verse is pivotal to many of the arguments of each side. Our side would say that the "they" in v. 12 refers back the "nations" in v. 3-5, and were represented by Alexander the Great, who did the things described in v. 12, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Tim Taylor
Where is Alexander mentioned in the text? He isn’t.
Holding also would have us believe that Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 3-5, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12.



JP's response was this:
quote:

That's right, and that's what I show later on, but you would hardly be who or what you are if you didn't try some pre-emptive manipulation. You learn your lessons well. Spare us the pre-emption prior to argument and data consideration.



So, let's go back to the original article and see if Holding did in fact show, later on, IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, why "Ezekiel begins by talking about Alexander in verses 305, switches to Nebuchadrezzar in verses 6-11, then switches back to Alexander in verse 12", as he said he did. Here is a quote from the article in question:
quote:

A key here is that the "they" in v. 12 can only refer to the "nations" in v. 3. Let's see how this is so.

Verse 3: The nations are mentioned.
Verse 4: The nations are referenced as "they."
Verse 7: Nebbie is introduced, along with his horses, chariots, horsemen, and army.
Verse 8: Says "HE will ravage your settlements on the mainland...HE will set up siege works against you (etc.)" At this point we see the personification of Nebbie in his forces begin. Obviously, Nebbie did not PERSONALLY do the things described while his army sat by and sipped coconuts.
Verse 9: says "HE will direct the blows of his battering ram..." Same as above; unless we want to argue that Nebbie only used his personal battering ram which he didn't let anyone else use.
Verses 10-11: "His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons and chariots when HE enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. The hoofs of his horses will trample all your streets; HE will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground." Here we see two more cases where Nebbie's forces are personified under singular references to himself.
Now the key verse:

Verse 12: "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise..." We may note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12. Skeptics would have us apply the "they" to the folks in v. 7. Aside from the fact that these folks have already been subsumed under Nebbie's pronoun, "HE," we may ask skeptics why they do not refer "they" to much closer words which agree in the plural sense and thus could be regarded as antecedents - for example, the "horses, wagons, and chariots" described in verses 10-11.



[i]Snowball
Hmmm...yeah it looks like he did, yet you continue to assert that he didn't answer this.



Unbelievable. Again, I have to wonder what JP would have to do, short of agreeing with you, to satisfy your need for an answer.

Tim Taylor
It is unbelievable that this is your example.

This is certainly convincing, given that post 2 shows the same arguments he made concerning Alexander APPLY to Nebuchadrezzar. Please understand the argument before your proceed to comment on it.

As you will note Snowball, he hasn't touched post 2, so no, he hasn't rebutted my argument.

There is no reason to believe that the "they" in both cases do not refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces, which consisted of many nations. This is the same argument Holding makes concerning Alexander (his forces consisted of many nations).

[stevencarrwork]

02-24-2003 @ 05:16 PM
Snowball:


Let's look at what JP originally said that caused this (hopefully) misunderstanding:


I can't believe you still don't get what Holding and johnransom were saying. Honestly, before I came here I thought that Holding had to be exaggerating when he described skeptics. I now see he is dead on. The word &quot;world&quot; appears twice in the ENGLISH text, as anyone can see, and that is what JP was referring to! Stevie, they're not kidding when they ask if you have a reading comprehension problem!


Could somebody please,please,please (I am begging you) tell me where the two cases of the word 'world' are in the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 12 verse 32, where 'aion' is the word for 'world' in both cases?

There is one, and only one, case of the word 'world' in the Greek text, and 'aion' is used once only. How can 'aion' be the word in 'both cases', when it is used only once?

Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that 'aion' is the word for 'world' in both cases, when there is nothing, nothing whatsoever , nothing at all, in the Greek text , which corresponds to the word added by the English translators. Show your working!

One case of the word 'world' corresponds to the Greek word 'aion' and one case of the word 'world' corresponds to nothing at all. And anybody can see that by simply looking at the words written in black and white in any interlinear!

And JP Holding's arguments in his articles are based on English words added to the text by the KJV translators!! And he boasts about it!!!

[johnransom]

02-24-2003 @ 02:00 PM
stevencarrwork:



Could somebody please,please,please (I am begging you) tell me where the two cases of the word 'world' are in the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 12 verse 32, where 'aion' is the word for 'world' in both cases?

There is one, and only one, case of the word 'world' in the Greek text, and 'aion' is used once only. How can 'aion' be the word in 'both cases', when it is used only once?

Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that 'aion' is the word for 'world' in both cases, when there is nothing, nothing whatsoever , nothing at all, in the Greek text , which corresponds to the word added by the English translators. Show your working!

One case of the word 'world' corresponds to the Greek word 'aion' and one case of the word 'world' corresponds to nothing at all. And anybody can see that by simply looking at the words written in black and white in any interlinear!

Bible-idolators cannot even tell you what the text says, and yet they say that they interpret it infallibly!

Oh dear. I thought you had finally gotten it. It must have slipped away into the gray mist of atheistic thinking. To repeat, once again: NO ONE has said that the word "aion" appears twice. The word "world" appears twice in the KJV (but not all translations) as cited in the original article. Unless the KJV translators, who, as was their wont, were valiantly trying to foresee the objections of intransigent skeptics 400 years later, must be dismissed as complete idiots who knew no Greek at all, then there must be some reason why the second "world" appears. That reason would be CLARITY of translation. Now, according to Stevie, they had absolutely no basis for this. It seems that NOTHING in the Greek text allows for this. Evidently Stevie, who knows German apparently well, does not realize that other languages can use case and gender to imply additional instances of the same noun, a method not available to the English language. Such is what happens here.

Tell us, Steve, would you claim that a translation of this phrase as "in this world or in the coming one" is also invalid because the Greek text does not include a word directly parallel to "one"?

Chow down on some of that straw you're using for an argument, Steve; it's the right diet for you.

[b488]

stevencarr:

Not sure what matthew 12:32 has anything whatever to do with the prophecy against Tyre, but you certainly have made a stink about it here. (ode de troll? )
Lemme ask you a question, tho. Do you honestly deny that the second part of this verse is not in reference to a coming 'aion'?


I await your answer with great expectation in this age, or perhaps in (the one) to come. :tongue:

Ciao. :thumb:

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, still beating that poor Shetland pony who bit him on the patoot,

I know, you didn't mean what you said.

I know, you couldn't grasp the implications of what I wrote. :grin: Typical Skeptical one-dimensionalism.

Since you refuse to address it, here it is:

The answer given is sufficient. Your attempt to bring in a Scotsman for help is a non-answer. Your attempt to call it a "begged question" is a non-answer and ignores the total linguistic structure of each oracle, which you can't deal with, and therefore have no answer for. Isolating 26:7 and 29:18 is a piece of trickery and the sort of lie we would expect from ye who lied about the contents of my article. When you gonna fess up on that, Tiny Tim?

mean the way his army was subsumed in "his" in Ezekiel 29:18?

You mean the verse where it was differentiated from him twice? :rofl: That's the way to go. Isolate them from their total context and pretend that you've found a secret in the lowest common denominator. I could just put:

<snip sorrowful attempt at semantic trickery>

Are you done with this part now? It's rather dull to see you doing :argh: over and over again due to your own lack of comprehension and imagined mastery of logic and exegesis, which you apparently picked up by reading cereal boxes. Cocoa Puffs, from the level of your scholarship. Not that I expect any difference next round.

[stevencarrwork]

02-24-2003 @ 08:34 PM
johnransom:


Tell us, Steve, would you claim that a translation of this phrase as &quot;in this world or in the coming one&quot; is also invalid because the Greek text does not include a word directly parallel to &quot;one&quot;?

Chow down on some of that straw you're using for an argument, Steve; it's the right diet for you.

This is a perfectly valid translation, but according to Holding's logic the word 'one' is a reference to the Greek word 'aion', so 'aion' means one.

See the previous next post in this thread (not written by me) which argues vehemently that the second part of the verse, which you yourself have translated with the word 'one', is a reference to the word 'aion'.

So the two of you have together 'proved' that the Greek word 'aion' means 'one'. Most amusing.

One of you has claimed that the second part of the verse is a reference to 'aion' , and you have claimed that this reference to 'aion' can be translated 'one'.

Are you absolutely certain though, that Holding bases the arguments in his articles on English words added to the text by the KJV translators? Holding's argument depends totally upon the added word being 'world', but you yourself , with great insight, have pointed out that the word 'one' is equally valid.

[johnransom]

02-24-2003 @ 03:06 PM
stevencarrwork:



This is a perfectly valid translation, but according to Holding's logic the word 'one' is a reference to the Greek word 'aion', so 'aion' means one.

Now we're into false syllogisms. A>B does not imply B>A. Yes, "one" does refer to "aion" (as does "world", obviously) in this case. :rant: THE FACT THAT IT IS NOT IN THE TEXT DOES NOT CHANGE THIS FACT ONE IOTA.

See the previous next post in this thread (not written by me) which argues vehemently that the second part of the verse, which you yourself have translated with the word 'one', is a reference to the word 'aion'.

So the two of you have together 'proved' that the Greek word 'aion' means 'one'. Most amusing.

Same false argument.

One of you has claimed that the second part of the verse is a reference to 'aion' , and you have claimed that this reference to 'aion' can be translated 'one'.

And of course both are correct, within the loose parameters that translation permits. What's the problem?

Are you absolutely certain though, that Holding bases the arguments in his articles on English words added to the text by the KJV translators?

No. The argument is based on the meaning of the word "aion". That's why your whole pointless diatribe is a huge straw man. It changes the validity of the argument in no way whatsoever, and is merely a cheap attempt to throw out an ad hominem attack. It may pass for argument among the Tillite thralls, but it won't pass here. Take JP's advice and drop it before your ego implodes.

[Bill the Cat]

Steve, it's called an implied phrase. It's like saying " are we going to stop at this rest stop or the next one. One is implying rest stop. And according to JP the word world (inserted by KJV translators) is, in the Greek, aeon. It's not in the Greek, nor the literal english, but it's implied. Wow you really know how to beat that dead horse.

[bdtayl]

[/i] <snip Holding's tire blather>



Tim Taylor
Since you refuse to address it, here it is:

Holding
The answer given is sufficient. Your attempt to bring in a Scotsman for help is a non-answer. Your attempt to call it a &quot;begged question&quot; is a non-answer and ignores the [i]total linguistic structure of each oracle, which you can't deal with, and therefore have no answer for

<snip diversionary crap>

Tim Taylor
Ah good, simple declarations are evidence.

You have lost. Until you rebut this, your repeated assertions are
just that. Assertions.


Here it is again.

=============
Tim Taylor
As Till has already pointed out, Ezekiel does reference his forces as "they" in Ezekiel 29. As shown here, your rebuttal was nothing but a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Here is the reference in question:

Ezekiel 29 (ASV)
18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor HIS army, from Tyre, for the service that HE served against it.

19
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and HE shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20
I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which HE served, because THEY wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

So, Ezekiel's use of "he" and "they" here torpedoes your argument. What was your "rebuttal" to this?

Holding
Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself.

Tim Taylor
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

If I remove all references to the resurrection on the Gospels, Jesus wasn't resurrected.

Holding
That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity,

Tim Taylor
Ezekiel 29:18 (ASV)
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused HIS army

compared to

Ezekiel 26:7 (ASV)
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and a company, and much people.

So, this is Holdings "no true Scotsman." Since Ezekiel refers to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "horses, chariots, horsemen, a company, and much people" in Chapter 26 but as an "army" in Chapter 29, Till's analogy can't be used. For those unfamiliar with the No True Scotsman, here is the definition (http://www.esgs.org/uk/logic.htm)

Ad hoc hypothesis: Hypothesis used to explain away facts that seem to refute one's theory. A special form of it is: "No true Scotsman. . .": an argument that takes the form of: "no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge", which is countered with "my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge", but is followed by the rejoinder, "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge"

Holding
in order to emphasize that "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed raw" - a simple, hyperbolic way of expressing how much trouble the army had to go to against Tyre. Three times (or maybe even four, depending on how you want to count) in the above passage Nebbie is paired with his army in a way that alludes to them as separate entities, and this gives a more than adequate reason for the use of "they" in the last sentence

Tim Taylor
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

<snip remainder of ad hoc fallacy>

Holding
Now the key verse:
Verse 12: "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise..." We may note that this is the first recurrence of "they" since verse 4. That this is so is a strong literary argument, even in English, that the subject of the "they" in verse 3, the "nations," is also to be identified with the actors in v. 12. Skeptics would have us apply the "they" to the folks in v. 7. Aside from the fact that these folks have already been subsumed under Nebbie's pronoun, "HE,"

Tim Taylor
You mean the way his army was subsumed in "his" in Ezekiel 29:18?

===========



Tim Taylor
mean the way his army was subsumed in &quot;his&quot; in Ezekiel 29:18?

Holding
You mean the verse where it was differentiated from him twice? :rofl: That's the way to go. Isolate them from their total context and pretend that you've found a secret in the lowest common denominator. I could just put:

Tim Taylor
That's it, bring in irrelevant material and pretend it's relevant.

Shaemus doesn't put sugar on his porridge!

<snip more of Holding's Ad hominem fallacies>

[stevencarrwork]

02-24-2003 @ 09:46 PM
Bill the Cat:

Steve, it's called an implied phrase. It's like saying &quot; are we going to stop at this rest stop or the next one. One is implying rest stop. And according to JP the word world (inserted by KJV translators) is, in the Greek, aeon. It's not in the Greek, nor the literal english, but it's implied. Wow you really know how to beat that dead horse.

Are you claiming that in the phrase 'this rest stop or the next one', 'rest stop' is used in both cases? It is not. In one case it is used, in the other case a different phrase is used. This is really rather basic.

But Holding never said 'implied'. Check out his essay. He took an English word, that Mr. Ransom has said can equally validly be replaced by a different English word, and based his argument on a word added to the text by the KJV translators.

I can only imagine the sarcasm and insults that Holding would subject a sceptic to, if a sceptic based an argument on an English word which does not correspond to *any* word in the Greek text.

I wonder if Holding has an example of that on his web site :-)

[Bill the Cat]

It's kind of simple. If you break down the sentence into it's basic parts, it refers to either one rest stop or another rest stop. JP can say that the word world inserted by the KJV translators would, if translated into Greek, in fact be aion and be correct.

Now for some clarity the ISBE says In the New Testament a frequent word for “world” is aion, “age” (Mat_12:32; Mat_13:22, Mat_13:39, Mat_13:40, Mat_13:49; Mat_24:3; Mar_4:19; Luk_16:8; Rom_12:2; Heb_1:2, etc.). the Revised Version (British and American) notes in these cases “age” in margin, and sometimes changes in text into “of old” (thus the American Standard Revised Version in Luk_1:70; Act_3:21), “ages,” “times,” etc., according to the sense (compare 1Co_10:11; Heb_6:5; Heb_9:26; 2Ti_1:9;. Tit_1:2, etc.).

Most generally the Greek word used is kósmos, the “ordered world” (e.g. Mat_4:8; Mat_5:14; Mat_26:13; Mar_8:36; Joh_1:9; Joh_8:12; Act_17:24; Rom_1:8, Rom_1:20, etc.). The wider sense of “all creation,” or “universe” (see above on the Old Testament), is expressed by such phrases as pánta, “all things” (Joh_1:3), pása hē ktı́sis, “the whole creation” (Rom_8:22).
[B]



So you see, JP was trying to show a distinction between the words for the inserted word world to mean age. It is not in the text but it is implied by the compound sentence and JP was doing nothing more than trying to clarify what "world" Matt was talking about.

[dizzle]

I cannot believe what I am reading about the "aion" business. Steve, do you really not get it, or are you pulling our collective leg?

[Bill the Cat]

\ /
\ /
\ /
|
|
|

Splitting hairs at it's finest, dee dee. He can't take the "not in the Greek" blinders off.

:duh: :doh:

[dizzle]

HEY ALL YOU GUESTS READING THIS THREAD!! COME ON AND REGISTER WITH US ALREADY AND JOIN THE FUN!!!

[Snowball]

Tim


It is unbelievable that this is your example.

This is certainly convincing, given that post 2 shows the same arguments he made concerning Alexander APPLY to Nebuchadrezzar. Please understand the argument before your proceed to comment on it.

As you will note Snowball, he hasn't touched post 2, so no, he hasn't rebutted my argument.

There is no reason to believe that the "they" in both cases do not refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces, which consisted of many nations. This is the same argument Holding makes concerning Alexander (his forces consisted of many nations).


What is unbelievable to me is that you are still at this. Let me get this straight, since you don't seem to think I understand your argument I'll reiterate it for you. First, Zeke describes how "many nations" will go up against Tyre and describes them as "they". Then, Zeke talks about Nebby and his army going up against Tyre, always in the singular sense of 'he/his', lumping Nebby and his army together since the army is obviously fighting for Nebby. Then, Zeke changes back to the plural sense, and you'd like us to think that it is obvious he was talking about Nebby the whole time. Isn't that what your argument is?

First off, you seem to think that because Nebby is described as 'king of kings' (indicating how powerful he was), then that means his army consisted of the "many nations" Zeke was talking about from the beginning. This is a huge stretch, and in no way is as detailed as JP is in his article, where he clearly demonstrates that Alexander fits the "many nations" description much better. Also, it doesn't make sense for your view to be the case, given how Zeke structured his oracle. If Nebby was in view the whole time, why bother separating out the "other nations" as "they" and Nebby and his army as "he?"

Also, why couldn't verse 12 be describing the "many nations" (that would include the nation Babylon that was just described) as "they". What in the world about this text, besides your presupposition that it can't possibly be a fulfilled prophecy, is so confusing for you?

From there you parrot Till's argument that Chapter 29 is similar to Chapter 26 and this supposedly cements your case. JP has answered this, and for clarification purposes, I'll post his answer:


Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself. That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity, in order to emphasize that "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed raw" - a simple, hyperbolic way of expressing how much trouble the army had to go to against Tyre. Three times (or maybe even four, depending on how you want to count) in the above passage Nebbie is paired with his army in a way that alludes to them as separate entities, and this gives a more than adequate reason for the use of "they" in the last sentence - a "he/they" parallel is established throughout the passage, and the last sentence is simply another example of such a pairing.


To which you say:

This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."


Whether or not you feel the 'they' in chapter 26 includes Nebby, the fact of the matter is that Zeke refers to Nebby and his army as the singular 'he/his' at least 8 times throughout the chapter, and it would be odd for him to start by calling Nebby and his army "them", then switch to calling Nebby and his army "He/his", then switch back to calling Nebby and his army "they". In Chapter 29, Nebby and his army are dealt with separately in every instance and are NOT lumped together AT ALL.

and


But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?


Let's see, you think: Zeke says in Chapter 26 "I will bring Nebby with his army, horses, etc. He will....He will...He will, etc." Then for some reason, Zeke switches to saying "they" when he is still talking about the same thing he was in the previous sentence. Then, you think that in Chapter 29 where Zeke says "Nebby and his army...Nebby and his army....Nebby and his army (ALWAYS referring to them separately)...they" proves your point.

Again, :argh:

[bdtayl]

02-24-2003 @ 06:14 PM
jpholding:

Snowball, thank you for your assistance. :smile:

I will be adding more material to that section of the essay, today if I get time. There are even more linguistic connections proving that Zeke in the 26 oracle regarded the parties of v 12 as different from Nebbie's army.

Tim Taylor
When you do, don’t forget to give your readers your IN TOTO prophecy fulfillment scenario. Here’ I’ll write it for you.

Many nations over the course of many centuries will alter the character of Tyre so that by the 20th century she will not have any of the same buildings rebuilt (Gee, this doesn’t apply to many modern cities, does it?) and therefore the 600 BCE version can never be found. The mainland city will be destroyed and be as a “bare rock” even though it was located on sand. The island will become a place to dry fishnets even though they were already drying fishnets there in Ezekiel’s time and it will be covered by the sea even though it has virtually the same measurements as in ancient times. The city need only be unpopulated for a few days because making it unpopulated permanently would be tough for Yahweh (and that would falsify the prophecy anyway).

The hilarious thing is that Holding sees nothing absurd in this ad hoc pretzel interpretation.

Please promise me that you will remain a full time apologist. I’d hate to think skeptics will lose the biggest helper for deconversion they ever had.

[bdtayl]

Snoball
It is unbelievable that this is your example.

Tim Taylor
This is certainly convincing, given that post 2 shows the same arguments he made concerning Alexander APPLY to Nebuchadrezzar. Please understand the argument before your proceed to comment on it.

As you will note Snowball, he hasn't touched post 2, so no, he hasn't rebutted my argument.

There is no reason to believe that the "they" in both cases do not refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces, which consisted of many nations. This is the same argument Holding makes concerning Alexander (his forces consisted of many nations).


Snowball
What is unbelievable to me is that you are still at this. Let me get this straight, since you don't seem to think I understand your argument I'll reiterate it for you. First, Zeke describes how "many nations" will go up against Tyre and describes them as "they". Then, Zeke talks about Nebby and his army going up against Tyre,

Tim Taylor
Ezekiel 26 (ASV)

1
And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

2
Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the peoples; she is turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste:
3
therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth its waves to come up.

4
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare rock.

7
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and a company, and much people.

Yes Snowball, the “many nations” here are the “many nations” under King Nebuchadrezzar. Ezekiel begins with a general opening, and becomes more specific at verse 7 when he says
"For thus..."

If the opening verses apply to many nations, then there is no reason to specify Nebuchadrezzar whatsoever. What would be the point?

Snoball
always in the singular sense of 'he/his', lumping Nebby and his army together since the army is obviously fighting for Nebby.

Tim Taylor
Ezekiel 26 (Con't)
10
HIS horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through.

11
The hoofs of HIS horses will trample all your streets; HE will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground.

12
THEY will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea.

Snoball
Then, Zeke changes back to the plural sense, and you'd like us to think that it is obvious he was talking about Nebby the whole time. Isn't that what your argument is?


Tim Taylor
You mean the way he does here?

Ezekiel 29
18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: EVERY HEAD was made bald, and EVEERY SHOULDER was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it.

19
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20
I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

My argument is not as simple as you claim. My argument was that the “they” in verse 12 can refer to the “many nations” in verse 3. If it does, then it simply refers back to Nebuchadrezzar. If it refers back to the horses and troops of verse 11, then it is still Nebuchadrezzar’s troops.

Snoball
rst off, you seem to think that because Nebby is described as 'king of kings' (indicating how powerful he was), then that means his army consisted of the "many nations" Zeke was talking about from the beginning.

Tim Taylor
Please be more accurate. I used the “king of kings” verse to show he had many nations under him.

Snoball
This is a huge stretch, and in no way is as detailed as JP is in his article, where he clearly demonstrates that Alexander fits the "many nations" description much better.

Tim Taylor
It is no more of a stretch than claiming it is Alexander. I don’t see how his Alexander argument is “better” than the Necuchadrezzar argument. You’ll have to explain exactly how many nations mean “many”

Snoball
Also, it doesn't make sense for your view to be the case, given how Zeke structured his oracle. If Nebby was in view the whole time, why bother separating out the "other nations" as "they" and Nebby and his army as "he?"


Tim Taylor
Why bother referring to his army as “they” after describing them and using HE in Ezekiel 29? I don’t see a problem with starting out with a general “many nations” then telling the reader specifically who God meant (Nebuchadrezzar).

The alternative, that it meant many nations over centuries makes the prophecy so general as to be useless and if it’s Alexander, it is a false prophecy.

Take your pick.

Snoball
Also, why couldn't verse 12 be describing the "many nations" (that would include the nation Babylon that was just described) as "they".

Tim Taylor
I have never stated that the “they” in verse 12 could not refer to the “many nations” of verse 3. That would still be referring to Nebuchadrezzar.

Snoball
What in the world about this text, besides your presupposition that it can't possibly be a fulfilled prophecy, is so confusing for you?

Tim Taylor
Please don’t confuse presuppositions with conclusions.

Snoball
From there you parrot Till's argument that Chapter 29 is similar to Chapter 26 and this supposedly cements your case. JP has answered this, and for clarification purposes, I'll post his answer:
quote:

Well, there's a big problem with using this passage: Unlike the other passage in question, Nebbie is highlighted ALONG WITH his army throughout the above in a way that the army is not highlighted in the previous passage. During the Tyre prophecy, as we have noted, Nebbie's army is personified under singular references to Nebbie himself. That is not what is happening here: The army is allowed to have its own identity, in order to emphasize that "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed raw" - a simple, hyperbolic way of expressing how much trouble the army had to go to against Tyre. Three times (or maybe even four, depending on how you want to count) in the above passage Nebbie is paired with his army in a way that alludes to them as separate entities, and this gives a more than adequate reason for the use of "they" in the last sentence - a "he/they" parallel is established throughout the passage, and the last sentence is simply another example of such a pairing.


To which you say:
quote:

Tim
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

Whether or not you feel the 'they' in chapter 26 includes Nebby, the fact of the matter is that Zeke refers to Nebby and his army as the singular 'he/his' at least 8 times throughout the chapter, and it would be odd for him to start by calling Nebby and his army "them", then switch to calling Nebby and his army "He/his", then switch back to calling Nebby and his army "they". In Chapter 29, Nebby and his army are dealt with separately in every instance and are NOT lumped together AT ALL.

Tim Taylor
No, read chapter 29 exerpt very carefully above. Verse 18 shows you are wrong.

Snoball
and quote:

Tim
But of course the fact that they are broken down into separate entities in Chapter 26 does not lead to the same conclusion, does it?

Let's see, you think: Zeke says in Chapter 26 "I will bring Nebby with his army, horses, etc. He will....He will...He will, etc." Then for some reason, Zeke switches to saying "they" when he is still talking about the same thing he was in the previous sentence. Then, you think that in Chapter 29 where Zeke says "Nebby and his army...Nebby and his army....Nebby and his army (ALWAYS referring to them separately)...they" proves your point.

Tim Taylor
No, he does not JUST say “Nebbie and his army.” He talks about the soldiers unless you think talking about heads and shoulders is not talking about soldiers.

Given that, you haven’t shown there is an important distinction between saying “his army” in Ezekiel 29 and “his horses” and “his battering rams” in Ezekiel 26, 9-11.

Perhaps you can explain it, because I don’t see it.

[djp229]

Tim,

At what point will you stop playing and realize you lost this one? There is nothing more pathetic than a so-called intellectual attacking something from the same angle someone (Till) already has and lost. Please give us something other than snide arrogant remarks and childish snippings to make your argument. You obviously don't have a clue about what Holding argued because you parrot Till's arguments which were already defeated.
I would give you more credit if you accepted this loss and came back with fresh arguments, or tried to refute something else. Anyway, you need to examine why you can't see what's so plain to others.
What good is intelligence if it is dishonest ?
As for skeptics needing Holding to help them deconvert, they certainly need better reasoning than what you have provided.
I hope this isn't, seriously, your best effort.
Finally, please relax and have fun here. You just may learn something. :smile:

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, still trying to get his head out of that horse's mouth,

<snip Holding's tire blather>

I.e, snip and evade once again all about Tiny Tim's big fat lies about my Genesis article. In fact let's post the core of that again, from the Google forum you posted it on, and my comments in italics:

Further, I caught him in a blatant lie a couple of years ago on the "created/had created" issue in Genesis 2. His initial article claimed the "only version I am aware of that renders it as 'created' is the KJV." Timmy definitely has a little memory problem; we'll relate that after we relate his full charge. After a Christian on Till's list forwarded rebuttals back to [Holding], he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article. To put it mildly, horse hockey. I never wrote anything about the word "created" being rendered any way, and it wasn't in relation to the KJV. Here is what Timmy is muddled over: G1 says that animals were created before man; G2 says that man came first, there was a need to designate a helpmeet, then animals were created for the first time...or does it? For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (but no other version that I know of) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so: Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. So it was "formed" and not "created"; it was the NIV, not the KJV; and while that essay was updated in response to some McTill hacks who had apparently found a Hebrew grammar on the floor, and despite Timmy's implication, the version I was "only aware of" was something that favored the position I took, not something against it, and I said zip about other versions.

Did your comments accurately reflect my Genesis article, Tiny Tim? YES or NO?

Ah good, simple declarations are evidence.

Simple declarations of fact that blow your thesis sky high, and which you can't answer. That's all the reply that is needed.

You have lost. Until you rebut this, your repeated assertions are just that. Assertions.

Typical game from the Till crowd. They'd walk up to Einstein demanding proof of the "assertions" he made about Relativity theory. They'd demand proof from a dictionary for the spelling of a word. Because it makes it looks like they're actually arguing something. Then they repeat the argument over and over again with the delusion that you haven't answered.

<snip extensive repeat of same, refuted argument>

That's it, bring in irrelevant material and pretend it's relevant.

That's it, dodge around the argument that puts you to bed for the night. :D Oh, but I do have more coming. Just as soon as you finish posting the rest of it. Get to it.

<snip gratuitous obsession with porridge>

Many nations over the course of many centuries will alter the character of Tyre so that by the 20th century she will not have any of the same buildings rebuilt (Gee, this doesn’t apply to many modern cities, does it?)

Uh :duh: and to how many that experienced a period of non-identity? In that list you gave, only Carthage seems to fit the bill. Not that it matters. After further study of the lit of the period I'm pretty sure now I'm going to conclude that Alex fulfilled the entirety of the prophecy as is. Put that in your porridge and smoke it, Shamu. :rofl:

and therefore the 600 BCE version can never be found. The mainland city will be destroyed and be as a “bare rock” even though it was located on sand.

Oh! Oh! Tiny Tim thinks that Alex had to deploy his army with whisk brooms in order for it to become a "bare rock". Yo ho ho and a bottle of Mr. Clean!

The island will become a place to dry fishnets even though they were already drying fishnets there in Ezekiel’s time

They were? Ask yourself, would the folks in your city let you dry nets INSIDE the city? I figured you lived in substandard housing, but I thought it would be a hamster cage! Post your next section so I can get the laughter over with. If you don't I'll pull it off Errancy and stop you from wasting our time.

and it will be covered by the sea even though it has virtually the same measurements as in ancient times.

Measurements? Who gives dip about measurements? Ask your local sandbar if measurements make it any less wet. Not that I care anymore, but it's worth exposing your manifest inability a little further.

The city need only be unpopulated for a few days because making it unpopulated permanently would be tough for Yahweh (and that would falsify the prophecy anyway).

Nope. Now answer my Ramesses question from some pages back, daredevil. Bet you ignore it again.

The hilarious thing is that Holding sees nothing absurd in this ad hoc pretzel interpretation.

Not a word. But I know jack doodle more than you by far when it comes to ancient lit and history.

Please promise me that you will remain a full time apologist. I’d hate to think skeptics will lose the biggest helper for deconversion they ever had.

Name three deconverts. Oops, that request will probably go the same place as the one where I asked for three examples of skipped arguments:

<snip of diversionary crap>

Be careful who you name. :p

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, his horse caught in his throat now as the vise grip closes,

There is no reason to believe that the &quot;they&quot; in both cases do not refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces, which consisted of many nations. This is the same argument Holding makes concerning Alexander (his forces consisted of many nations).

Oh that would make sense.

Ezek. 39:27 When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations...

Ezek. 38:23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Deut. 7:1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou..

Now explain to us:

1) How it is that Nebbie fulfilled "many nations" in his own army. I expect you have an answer to this, so pull it out.

2) How "many nations" could possibly exclude other nations stepping in and fulfilling 3-5 and 12-14.


If the opening verses apply to many nations, then there is no reason to specify Nebuchadrezzar whatsoever. What would be the point?

Uh :duh: maybe Nebbie is only going to fulfill part of Zeke 26?

<snip same repeated, refuted argument for the 1756th time>

You mean the way he does here?

Tell us what other candidate there is for an antecedent for "they" in the oracle of Zeke 29:17-20.

My argument is not as simple as you claim. My argument was that the “they” in verse 12 can refer to the “many nations” in verse 3. If it does, then it simply refers back to Nebuchadrezzar.

Oops. You just bloodied your own nose, Tiny Tim. :rofl:

Please be more accurate. I used the “king of kings” verse to show he had many nations under him.

If this is your only reason, you just sank like the Titanic. If you don't a) have political evidence that he was a "king of kings" (i.e., that this is not just a complimentary title, as in, "he is the best or most powerful of all kings then around") and b) show that these nations he was "king" over participated as independent units in his attack on Tyre, you can just blow your nose now and go home.

The alternative, that it meant many nations over centuries makes the prophecy so general as to be useless and if it’s Alexander, it is a false prophecy.

We're still waiting for you to show that part, Teensy. Get to it, we're all about to take a nap here.

This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as &quot;they&quot;, of course the only remaining references are to &quot;he.&quot;

In other words, I display the linguistic pattern that refutes your Scotch Tape argument.

Perhaps you can explain it, because I don’t see it.

So speaketh Ray Charles. :rofl:

[jpholding]

In pits little Stevie Carr, on his way to tell the army of stupid ancients how to build a dam,

But Holding never said 'implied'. Check out his essay. He took an English word, that Mr. Ransom has said can equally validly be replaced by a different English word, and based his argument on a word added to the text by the KJV translators.

What a convoluted load. Stevie sounds like FTill trying to justify his poor reading of my 90% comment. What say on that one, Stevie? Did FTill read tright or not? Oh, I know: <silence> Don't want to offend the Big Kahuna, he might cut you out of his will.
I'll drop a hint in your ear, Stevie. Ain't no way I could have misread it the way you think anyway, because not even Quickverse shows aion twice in this one. Now you come up with some wacky notion about us saying aion means "one". Are there barbituates in your shaving cream?

I can only imagine the sarcasm and insults that Holding would subject a sceptic to, if a sceptic based an argument on an English word which does not correspond to *any* word in the Greek text. I wonder if Holding has an example of that on his web site

Go find three. You obviously need something productive to do with your time. :D

[bdtayl]

[QUOTE]02-25-2003 @ 02:21 AM

<snip more of Holding's Nonsense>


Tim Taylor
Many nations over the course of many centuries will alter the character of Tyre so that by the 20th century she will not have any of the same buildings rebuilt (Gee, this doesn’t apply to many modern cities, does it?)

Holding
Uh :duh: and to how many that experienced a period of non-identity?

Tim Taylor
Tyre never experienced "non identity" and even if it did,
"non-identity" is not part of the prophecy.

Holding
In that list you gave, only Carthage seems to fit the bill. Not that it matters. After further study of the lit of the period I'm pretty sure now I'm going to conclude that Alex fulfilled the entirety of the prophecy as is. Put that in your porridge and smoke it, Shamu. :rofl:

Tim Taylor
Alexander never destroyed Tyre, it never became a bare rock, it has been found, it isn't under water, and you are a pathetic apologist.


Tim Taylor
and therefore the 600 BCE version can never be found. The mainland city will be destroyed and be as a “bare rock” even though it was located on sand.

Holding
Oh! Oh! Tiny Tim thinks that Alex had to deploy his army with whisk brooms in order for it to become a &quot;bare rock&quot;. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Mr. Clean!

Tim Taylor
And the internet's worst apologist keeps throwing in red herrings!

Only on tekton does a sand dune become a rock!

What a miracle! The ISLAND CITY EXISTS AND IT ISN"T A BARE ROCK. Is anybody home?


Tim Taylor
The island will become a place to dry fishnets even though they were already drying fishnets there in Ezekiel’s time

Holding
They were? Ask yourself, would the folks in your city let you dry nets INSIDE the city?

Tim Taylor
Uh duh, they had harbors, two of them. Very famous. You should read more.

Holding
I figured you lived in substandard housing, but I thought it would be a hamster cage! Post your next section so I can get the laughter over with. If you don't I'll pull it off Errancy and stop you from wasting our time.

Tim Taylor
It has all been posted, and it makes you look like an utter fool.

Not that much effort is involved there. You do most of the work yourself.



Tim
and it will be covered by the sea even though it has virtually the same measurements as in ancient times.

Mr Red herring
Measurements? Who gives dip about measurements? Ask your local sandbar if measurements make it any less wet. Not that I care anymore, but it's worth exposing your manifest inability a little further.

[/i]Tim Taylor
Another wonderful red herring!

If had read Fleming, he said the CITY had the same measurements.

Tim Taylor
The city need only be unpopulated for a few days because making it unpopulated permanently would be tough for Yahweh (and that would falsify the prophecy anyway).

Holding
Nope. Now answer my Ramesses question from some pages back, daredevil. Bet you ignore it again.

Tim Taylor
Sure, right after you explain why Yahweh could depopulate
Pompeii but not Tyre



Tim
The hilarious thing is that Holding sees nothing absurd in this ad hoc pretzel interpretation.

Not a word. But I know jack doodle more than you by far when it comes to ancient lit and history.

Tim Taylor
Please promise me that you will remain a full time apologist. I’d hate to think skeptics will lose the biggest helper for deconversion they ever had.

Holding
Name three deconverts. Oops, that request will probably go the same place as the one where I asked for three examples of skipped arguments:

Tim Taylor
You have skipped the same 2 arguments 3 times in this thread alone and lied ("manipulated") it. So there's 6 right there.

[bdtayl]

<snip>

Holding
Now explain to us:

1) How it is that Nebbie fulfilled &quot;many nations&quot; in his own army. I expect you have an answer to this, so pull it out.

Tim Taylor
No problem:

"The period of King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is among the distinguished periods of reign in the ancient history of Iraq in particular and the ancient history of the middle east in general.

Among the more important works of King Nebuchadnezzar II is that he continued his conquests east and west and established an empire that was the strongest known in history. "

Do you really need for me to explain the conscription of foreign forces into a conquerers army?

Holding
2) How &quot;many nations&quot; could possibly exclude other nations stepping in and fulfilling 3-5 and 12-14.

Tim Taylor

I don't have to show that it "excludes" anything, only a better interpretation than your "pretzel" logic.

<snip remaining stupidity>

[bdtayl]

Tim,
At what point will you stop playing and realize you lost this one?

Tim Taylor
When you present an argument that shows I lost. Do you know what an argument is?


There is nothing more pathetic than a so-called intellectual attacking something from the same angle someone (Till) already has and lost. Please give us something other than snide arrogant remarks and childish snippings to make your argument.

Tim Taylor
There is nothing more pathetic than bleacher posturing.

You have some nerve accusing me of snide childish remarks and snipped arguments.

How many time has your hero snipped my arguments and lied about it?

How many times has he engaged in ad hominem?

Till's Tyre arguments haven't been defeated. Like the rest of your posturing comrades, you're good at ad hominem and rather poor at argumentation and providing examples.

I have accomplished what I came here to do. That is to show that
Holding is nothing but a loudmouth who substitutes ad hominem for arguments.

That is a logical fallacy. You don't seem to realize that.

I do have better things to do than repeatedly point out the fallacious reasoning of a nonentity apologist.

So long.


You obviously don't have a clue about what Holding argued because you parrot Till's arguments which were already defeated.

Tim Taylor

Um, dumbo, I have more than a clue. I took his "Arguments" from his website.

<snip remaining posturing stupidity>

[bdtayl]

02-25-2003 @ 02:55 AM
bdtayl:

&lt;snip&gt;

Holding
Now explain to us:

1) How it is that Nebbie fulfilled &amp;quot;many nations&amp;quot; in his own army. I expect you have an answer to this, so pull it out.

Tim Taylor
No problem:

&quot;The period of King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is among the distinguished periods of reign in the ancient history of Iraq in particular and the ancient history of the middle east in general. - -

Among the more important works of King Nebuchadnezzar II is that he continued his conquests east and west and established an empire that was the strongest known in history. &quot;
-http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/hilla.htm

Do you really need for me to explain the conscription of foreign forces into a conquerers army?

Ever heard of the Babylonian Empire?

Holding
2) How &amp;quot;many nations&amp;quot; could possibly exclude other nations stepping in and fulfilling 3-5 and 12-14.

Tim Taylor

I don't have to show that it &quot;excludes&quot; anything, only a better interpretation than your &quot;pretzel&quot; logic.

&lt;snip remaining stupidity&gt;

[bdtayl]

Holding (quoting Tim)
Further, I caught him in a blatant lie a couple of years ago on the &quot;created/had created&quot; issue in Genesis 2. His initial article claimed the &quot;only version I am aware of that renders it as 'created' is the KJV.&quot;

Timmy definitely has a little memory problem; we'll relate that after we relate his full charge. After a Christian on Till's list forwarded rebuttals back to [Holding], he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article. To put it mildly, horse hockey.

Tim Taylor
Well, now that we have the text of my 1999 e-mail, we don't have to reply on anyone's flawed memory.

There is nothing better than shoving someone's foot further down their throat when they have already put it in.

Before I leave, I'm going to address this diversion you kept harping on.

Your friend did a rather poor job in relaying proof that you either lied, or are a bungling fool of an apologist on your website

What he sent you was a claim I made from memory of a post I had sent 2 years prior on errancy.

What he didn't send you was THE BODY OF THE POST ITSELF, which can be found here:

http://www.errantyears.com/1999/feb99/000035.html

Here is the body of that post:

=================

CREA
Sorry to disagree with you. Take another look at Tim's citations:


Tim
The following quote is from [edited]'s original "harmonization" of
the Genesis accounts:

"Poor King James, people are always pickin' on him. AS OUR MODERN TRANSLATIONS INDICATE, Gen. 2:19 should say, the Lord God had formed every beast, etc"

Now, the new harmonization reads:
"For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem
has been to do what the NIV (BUT NO OTHER VERSION THAT I KNOW OF) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air."


CREA
Turke*/Holding's initial position was that "modern translations"
(note the use of the plural form here) used the past perfect (or
pluperfect) in rendering Genesis 2:19. Now how could ****** KNOW this, if he hadn't taken the time to examine those "modern translations"? But in his second attempt at a harmonization he admits that while the NIV renders the passage in the pluperfect, there is "NO OTHER VERSION THAT I [******/Holding] KNOW OF"
which supports this rendering. So, at the very least,
******/Holding is admitting that he really DIDN'T KNOW that "modern translations"supported the pluperfect rendering in the first place -- in my book that makes him no better than a common LIAR and a CHEAT, and basically renders suspect
anything else he may have to say. And if you'd been reading the postings on the subject, you'd have become aware of the existence of at least THREE "modern translations" which opt for the pluperfect rendering -- most of which have been done by "conservative"/"orthodox"/"fundamentalist"
translation teams committed to the concept of an inerrant bible.


Tim
Yes Jason, please read it this time. Your hero goofed or lied and you try and dismiss it with a wave of your hand.
=================
Holding
I never wrote anything about the word &quot;created&quot; being rendered any way, and it wasn't in relation to the KJV. Here is what Timmy is muddled over: G1 says that animals were created before man; G2 says that man came first, there was a need to designate a helpmeet, then animals were created for the first time...or does it? For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (but no other version that I know of) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so: Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. So it was &quot;formed&quot; and not &quot;created&quot;; it was the NIV, not the KJV; and while that essay was updated in response to some McTill hacks who had apparently found a Hebrew grammar on the floor, and despite Timmy's implication, the version I was &quot;only aware of&quot; was something that favored the position I took, not something against it, and I said zip about other versions.

Tim Taylor
What you said and how you contradicted yourself is now abundantly clear. I don't need to summarize your quotes, they appear above.

In your "summarization" here of my original charge, you left out the contents of your original article, so that for the past 5 days, no one could compare the contents of your "updated" Genesis article with your original, but now all your adoring fans in this forum can see that you're a liar now, and you were a liar in 1999.

Holding
Did your comments accurately reflect my Genesis article, Tiny Tim? YES or NO?

Tim Taylor
Yes, indeed windbag, the contents of my 1999 e-mail do precisely reflect your original article and how you changed it after facts showing you were incorrect were forwarded to you. All the ad hominems, bombast, red herrings, sophmoric behavior, asinine harmonizations, etc. etc don't alter the fact that you either were a fool or a liar in this instance in 1999. Given your lies in this Tyre thread, or as you prefer to call it, a "manipulation", you undoubtedly lied then.

Well congratulations bigmouth, you have been manipulated for 5 days into reposting the same damning diversion which has now come back to haunt you. Didn't think I was going to address it did you?

Now, I would love to stay and watch you contort yourself into knots denying what is obvious from my 1999 e-mail, but having destroyed your Tyre apologetic and showed the absurdity of your IN TOTO interpretation, I'm taking leave of this forum.

I can't spend 24 hours per day repeatedly showing your followers what a pathetic debater you are.

I'll ask these questions to every Christian in this forum. Is this the man you want defending your faith?

A man who can do nothing but insult instead of argue?

A man who routinely lies?

A man who promised to provide links in his debate with Till but stopped providing them after he started to lose?

(Oh yes, search on google for a "nameless skeptic", that's as easy as a link)

A man who has to "summarize" and manipulate other's writings to avoid copyright claims and proper attribution?

No wonder Christians have sent e-mails to Till apologizing for your behavior.

[johnransom]

Hey DDW et al. This thread leads me to conclude: we need an official smilie of a dead horse being beaten! In the meantime how's this:


nll_ll_:whip:

(OK, it's cheesy, but it works!)

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, the white Bronco he got for Xmas all busted,

<snip more of Holding's Nonsense>

I.e., once again snip and avoid that charge that you lied like a rug. :rofl: Avoidance! It does a body good!

Tyre never experienced "non identity" and even if it did,"non-identity" is not part of the prophecy.

Tyre DID experience a period of non-identity when it didn't exist. And while I am now inclined to think that it wasn't required by the prophecy, it's of no effect to say that the word isn't there, which is about all you seem to be able to say.

Alexander never destroyed Tyre, it never became a bare rock, it has been found, it isn't under water, and you are a pathetic apologist.

By my former argument, Alexander didn't need to destroy Tyre, but someone did; you have this cuckoo-bird idea that they needed whisk brooms to make it a bare rock; the remains of the mainland city are about as much in the water as you can get, and you are a profound liar who still uses evasion and avoidance when you neck is in a noose. :rofl:

And the internet's worst apologist keeps throwing in red herrings! Only on tekton does a sand dune become a rock!
Only a nimnul thinks that sand stays in the same place over a thousand or more years. :duh: But guess what, Tiny Tim? Who is the "bare rock"/top of a rock warning addressed to? Is it the ground? Uh, no. Think a little multi-dimensionally and you might get the picture. I will put an answer in my article. You don't seem to be home yourself, having been kidnapped.

Uh duh, they had harbors, two of them. Very famous. You should read more.

Uh duh, if it says that the CITY will become a place to spread fishnets, and they are ALREADY doing that in the harbor, then what's the point? You should think more. :dunce:

It has all been posted, and it makes you look like an utter fool.

Not here it ain't. It looks like you're leaving town, so I may have to go get it. Or maybe I'll just answer it in my article and spare you any more red-face here. I really don't have time to help you spread your delusions of competence.

Another wonderful red herring! If had read Fleming, he said the CITY had the same measurements.

Keep repeating back the same refuted answer. I already said measurements wasn't the issue. You didn't answer. More evasion. And more here:

Sure, right after you explain why Yahweh could depopulate Pompeii but not Tyre

Evasion. You know that the Ramesses question spells some doom for you. Pompeii is irrelevant unless there was some prophecy against it, and I can see that you know that there is some trap laid for you in my own question. Fine, it'll go in my article.

You have skipped the same 2 arguments 3 times in this thread alone. So there's 6 right there.

Ah. That's how they find skipped arguments: By delusional fantasy. Never mind.

"The period of King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is among the distinguished periods of reign in the ancient history of Iraq in particular and the ancient history of the middle east in general.

That's very special. It doesn't prove that he had "many nations" in his attack force.

Among the more important works of King Nebuchadnezzar II is that he continued his conquests east and west and established an empire that was the strongest known in history. "

That's also very special. It doesn't prove that he had "many nations" in his attack force.

Do you really need for me to explain the conscription of foreign forces into a conquerers army?

I need for you to explain that he had them in his attack on Tyre. That would be a start, but whoops, we just sort of whittled right by THAT proof, didn't we? Pompous smugness is not an acceptable substitute, sorry. And then you need to show that they attacked having their identity as nations, which matches up with the way the phrase "many nations" is used throughout the Bible, as I showed, and which you did not deal with. The nations under Alex did retain their identities as nations. What about those under Neb? Mmmm?

Not that it would matter. The set of "nations" is a larger set than the one containing only Neb. "Nations" allows the fulfillment to be by Nebbie, by Alex, by Li Wu of China, but Nxetchalthal of Yucatan. Your attempt to force it down to the set of Nebbie:

I don't have to show that it "excludes" anything, only a better interpretation than your "pretzel" logic.

Yes you do have to show it "excludes" other nations, or your argument is just fluff. IOW you here admit you have no actual answer.

I have accomplished what I came here to do. That is to show that Holding is nothing but a loudmouth who substitutes ad hominem for arguments.

I acomplished my goal long ago: showing you to be a consummate liar and evader. I have needed no help to show that you think uni-dimensionally and make excuses rather than arguments: You showed that on your own.

I do have better things to do than repeatedly point out the fallacious reasoning of a nonentity apologist.

Is Tiny Tim leaving the building? Well, if so, I'll have my revised article up in the next two days or so. And we'll address his attempt to fudge out of his lie later on.

[Bill the Cat]

Hey, JP. Remember the statue Nebbie dreamed about in Daniel 2:39b ? Didn't the Macedonian Empire fall in that as the image of Nebbie?

Albert Barnes said "There can be no reasonable doubt that by this third kingdom is denoted the empire founded by Alexander the Great - the Macedonian empire."

So prophetically, could Alexander's empire not fall "under" Nebbie's?

[jpholding]

In rides Tiny Tim, perhaps for the very last time, being dragged behind the horse that brung him:

Well, now that we have the text of my 1999 e-mail, we don't have to reply on anyone's flawed memory.

Oops. But we DON'T have the text of Tim's message in question, which is from 2002. This is oh but good. Flawed memory? How ironic.

There is nothing better than shoving someone's foot further down their throat when they have already put it in.

He has said so himself! :rofl:

Your friend did a rather poor job in relaying proof that you either lied, or are a bungling fool of an apologist on your website

Guffaw, guffaw -- my "friend" is Brooks Trubee, who provides a link to a copy of your 2002 letter at http://members.aol.com/bbu85/lie.html -- apparently hosting it himself. So correction: My "friend" is one of your own; what he "related" is a full copy of your own letter from Google. So hey, if you want to say Brooks is a bungling fool on his OWN website, knock thyself out. :rofl:

What he sent you was a claim I made from memory of a post I had sent 2 years prior on errancy.

Oh! Oh! So bad memory is OK? That's good. Because now I'll reveal that that's why I thought in error before that you had missed that Appendix. It had been 5 years since I had read the Tyre article, and the different order threw me for a loop. So then! We still have a Skeptical double standard. Any time they think you're lying, they can just say so and paint you black at will. Anyways, I wasn't "sent" nothin' -- it's posted on Brooks' site. Still is.

What he didn't send you was THE BODY OF THE POST ITSELF, which can be found here:

I doubt if Brooks knew about the body of any post from errantyears.com, but if he did, he obviously didn't think it made a difference.

The following quote is from ****s original "harmonization" of the Genesis accounts:

Your memory was poor even then, Tiny Tim. The quote you gave:

Poor King James, people are always pickin' on him. AS OUR MODERN TRANSLATIONS INDICATE, Gen. 2:19 should say, the Lord God had formed every beast, etc"

...was NOT from any "original harmonization" but from one of my very first articles, answering a list of alleged contadictions by Jim Merritt which included some 50 other citations, none of which were more than a sentence of off the cuff replies. Poor memory lapse #1. The next problem is Crea's own problem, which you swallowed uncritically from him, which is no surprise from this bunch:

Holding's initial position was that "modern translations" (note the use of the plural form here) used the past perfect (or pluperfect) in rendering Genesis 2:19. Now how could ****** KNOW this, if he hadn't taken the time to examine those "modern translations"? But in his second attempt at a harmonization he admits that while the NIV renders the passage in the pluperfect, there is "NO OTHER VERSION THAT I [******/Holding] KNOW OF" which supports this rendering.

Isn't it delightful to see Skeptics reading into your words what they think you said, and then pretending to know what you meant and said exactly? We've seen it here with Stevie Carr; now this. Crea assumed to mind-read from "modern translations" (not "versions") an assumption that I had gone through NIVs, LIVs, NSRV's, etc. No. I had nothing in mind at that time but the NIV and its various editions. If I can be gotten for any error here, it is the error of using "translations" with technical imprecision. Either way Crea jumped on his own horse and ran for the hills, reading into one word a plethora of implications, then taking his argument from there. Typical Skeptical caterwauling as a substitute for actual argument.

in my book that makes him no better than a common LIAR and a CHEAT, and basically renders suspect
anything else he may have to say.

It does not behoove well to speak of the dead, but in Crea's case an obvious exception is warranted. He calls me a "liar" and a "cheat" based on his own understanding of what I meant, doesn't even bother inquiring of me to make sure he got it right, and even then defames "anything else" I have to say. Got the picture now, Tiny Tim? Don't worry -- you're still not out of the woods yet.

And if you'd been reading the postings on the subject, you'd have become aware of the existence of at least THREE "modern translations" which opt for the pluperfect rendering -- most of which have been done by "conservative"/"orthodox"/"fundamentalist"translation teams committed to the concept of an inerrant bible.

Which matters not at all, as my article shows, but that's a tangent in context. I scanned Errancy archives on this and it was hilarious to see these rope-a-dopes responding to detailed arguments by grammar experts like Jouon by saying, "Yeah, but, all these translations say..." Typical head in the sand approach. Now let's get back to my evaluation:

After a Christian on Till's list forwarded rebuttals back to [Holding], he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article.

Poor memory or lie #2. The most charitable idea is that Tiny Tim is confusing two different episodes. I never received a letter from any Christian on Till's list about the above subject when it was on the Merritt article. I received letters about the issue of the pluperfect and the grammatical niceties associated with it AFTER the new article had been posted on the Creation accounts.

To put it mildly, horse hockey. I never wrote anything about the word "created" being rendered any way, and it wasn't in relation to the KJV.

Still correct, since I never wrote aboout the word "created". It was "formed" even in the original article on Merritt. Thus also it is true about the KJV/NIV issue.

What you said and how you contradicted yourself is now abundantly clear. I don't need to summarize your quotes, they appear above.

You do need to get your correspondence straight, however, and stop spreading falsehoods based on poor memory and assumptions of Grumpy Smurfs like Crea and FTill, who run with their assumptions and interpretations as fast as they can before someone can correct them.

In your "summarization" here of my original charge, you left out the contents of your original article, so that for the past 5 days, no one could compare the contents of your "updated" Genesis article with your original, but now all your adoring fans in this forum can see that you're a liar now, and you were a liar in 1999.

All they can see is your poor memory in action, or your liarhood, or your nose-to-tail following of assumptions made by your fearless leaders, whichever you prefer. Either way you don't smell very good.

Yes, indeed windbag, the contents of my 1999 e-mail do precisely reflect your original article and how you changed it after facts showing you were incorrect were forwarded to you.

The "change" did not even change the basic fact asserted, only what Crea ignorantly thought I said, and was not made in response to anything forwarded to me from Till's list. That took place otherwise and I clearly stated that it was done at that time because some of FTill's thralls had found a grammar on the floor and presented arguments related to the "waw consecutive". English versions and what they said, and how many, was not the issue.

Given your lies in this Tyre thread, or as you prefer to call it, a "manipulation", you undoubtedly lied then.

Just as you undoubtedly "lied" now.

Well congratulations bigmouth, you have been manipulated for 5 days into reposting the same damning diversion which has now come back to haunt you. Didn't think I was going to address it did you?

Didn't care if you did. Either way you were dead meat.

Now, I would love to stay and watch you contort yourself into knots denying what is obvious from my 1999 e-mail, but having destroyed your Tyre apologetic and showed the absurdity of your IN TOTO interpretation, I'm taking leave of this forum.

Absolutely. Don't want to risk being corrected of your delusions. rofl:

I can't spend 24 hours per day repeatedly showing your followers what a pathetic debater you are.

By implication, those of you who remain unconvinced by Tiny Tim's brilliance, are likewise pathetic.

I'll ask these questions to every Christian in this forum. Is this the man you want defending your faith?

Let 'em vote with their feet.

A man who can do nothing but insult instead of argue?

Insults after arguing, actually. Keep it in order. All you pretend to see is insults because you evade the arguments.

A man who routinely lies?

Versus people who can't read things like how much I want them to pay to my website, then accuse YOU of being at fault for not writing clearly?

A man who promised to provide links in his debate with Till but stopped providing them after he started to lose?

Versus Tiny Tim and Co. who swallow uncritically what Almighty Lord God FTill says? http://www.tektonics.org/tillstink.html -- the links are all right where FTill was told they'd be. He just has a poor memory, which is a very common problem, but only Skeptics of his crowd turn their poor memories into hard facts and then stand by them as they get run over.

(Oh yes, search on google for a "nameless skeptic", that's as easy as a link)

Much easier to search for unique quoted text. :duh:

A man who has to "summarize" and manipulate other's writings to avoid copyright claims and proper attribution?

Has to? Chooses to. You don't deserve any attention.

No wonder Christians have sent e-mails to Till apologizing for your behavior.

All of one or two out of 50K per month who log in, I am sure. I don't care what some misguided soft-heart assumes to do on my behalf -- they're likely under the impression that they can evangelize FTill and "witness" to him by being nice, which amounts to casting pearls before swine, and chances are they have no idea he's been deceiving people and posing as knowing more than he does for the past 13 years. You may as well make it a point to tell me that some Christians believe abortion is acceptable.

Poor Tiny Tim. The Ghost of Xmas Future just got to him.

[jpholding]

Ack ack, :smile:

So prophetically, could Alexander's empire not fall "under" Nebbie's?

That would be rather odd and would not reflect any known political or historical reality. It probably reads too much into the practical necessity of using a statue as a metaphor.

Opus

[Snowball]

Tim Taylor

Ezekiel 26 (ASV)
1
And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

2
Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the peoples; she is turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste:
3
therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth its waves to come up.

4
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare rock.

7
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and a company, and much people.

Yes Snowball, the “many nations” here are the “many nations” under King Nebuchadrezzar. Ezekiel begins with a general opening, and becomes more specific at verse 7 when he says
"For thus..."

If the opening verses apply to many nations, then there is no reason to specify Nebuchadrezzar whatsoever. What would be the point?


So your argument is that Nebby’s army consisted of “many nations” (which I just don’t think history supports well enough, and as JP has shown, doesn’t jive with how the Bible itself uses the term “many nations”). You then feel that the ‘For thus’ means that Zeke started out in a general sense and is now just becoming more specific. Do you see at all the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Zeke is instead starting out by saying “many nations”, then he is zooming in on one particular nation within that many nations (telescoping in, so to speak), and then he is again telescoping back out at the end to include ALL of the nations including Babylon? Is that a possibility to you, or not?

To me, there are only two ways to read it. The way that you read it, in which the prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled – and the way that I detailed above, in which the prophecy has been fulfilled.

You, Tim, are free to make your choice. I have made mine based on what seems more rational. I just cannot see the “many nations” that Ezekiel is referencing to mean Babylon only. “Many”, to me, means more than one. I understand your reasoning that Nebby conquered many nations and assimilated them into his army, but they were still the Babylonian army, and Ezekiel would see them as such.

Tim Taylor

You mean the way he does here?

Ezekiel 29
18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: EVERY HEAD was made bald, and EVERY SHOULDER was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it.

19
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20
I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

My argument is not as simple as you claim. My argument was that the “they” in verse 12 can refer to the “many nations” in verse 3. If it does, then it simply refers back to Nebuchadrezzar. If it refers back to the horses and troops of verse 11, then it is still Nebuchadrezzar troops.


Please let me know if you feel I am skipping some of your arguments, but I didn’t include everything in your last post or this one would be too long. Again, I understand your argument, but it is simple, if you don’t mind my disagreeing with your assessment. If the “they” in verse 12 refers to the “many nations” in verse 3 (which you agree it can), then it really all goes back to what “many nations” means, right? You feel that Nebuchadrezzar’s army consists of many nations, I don’t think it does. I think that saying Ezekiel viewed Nebuchadrezzar’s army as many nations is very strained and it doesn’t suit my sensibilities.


Snoball
First off, you seem to think that because Nebby is described as 'king of kings' (indicating how powerful he was), then that means his army consisted of the "many nations" Zeke was talking about from the beginning.

Tim Taylor
Please be more accurate. I used the “king of kings” verse to show he had many nations under him.


Isn’t that what I said? How could I have been more accurate, exactly?


Snoball
This is a huge stretch, and in no way is as detailed as JP is in his article, where he clearly demonstrates that Alexander fits the "many nations" description much better.

Tim Taylor
It is no more of a stretch than claiming it is Alexander. I don’t see how his Alexander argument is “better” than the Necuchadrezzar argument. You’ll have to explain exactly how many nations mean “many”


Again, to me, “many nations” means more than one. Babylon alone doesn’t cut it. Alexander, as JP has shown, did have more than one nation (with separate identities) under him.


Snoball
Also, it doesn't make sense for your view to be the case, given how Zeke structured his oracle. If Nebby was in view the whole time, why bother separating out the "other nations" as "they" and Nebby and his army as "he?"


Tim Taylor
Why bother referring to his army as “they” after describing them and using HE in Ezekiel 29? I don’t see a problem with starting out with a general “many nations” then telling the reader specifically who God meant (Nebuchadrezzar).

The alternative, that it meant many nations over centuries makes the prophecy so general as to be useless and if it’s Alexander, it is a false prophecy.

Take your pick.


This is a false dichotomy. If Nebuchadrezzar’s army was in view when Ezekiel said “many nations”, then I also wouldn’t have a problem with him calling them “they” in verse 12. The problem here, which I think is the crux of the whole thing, is that “many nations” business supposedly referring to Nebuchadrezzar’s Babylonian army. If the prophecy means many nations over the coming centuries (and one of them specifically being Babylon), then the prophecy has been fulfilled. Ezekiel was forecasting the utter destruction of a then-thriving city. If I prophesied that many nations would come up against New York City over the next two centuries and utterly destroy it, would you believe me?



Snoball
From there you parrot Till's argument that Chapter 29 is similar to Chapter 26 and this supposedly cements your case. JP has answered this, and for clarification purposes, I'll post his answer:
quote:

<snip sensible explanation.>

To which you say:

Tim
This statement simply begs the question under discussion. In other words, once Holding removes the verses in Ezekiel 26 that refer to Nebuchadrezzar's forces as "they", of course the only remaining references are to "he."

Whether or not you feel the 'they' in chapter 26 includes Nebby, the fact of the matter is that Zeke refers to Nebby and his army as the singular 'he/his' at least 8 times throughout the chapter, and it would be odd for him to start by calling Nebby and his army "them", then switch to calling Nebby and his army "He/his", then switch back to calling Nebby and his army "they". In Chapter 29, Nebby and his army are dealt with separately in every instance and are NOT lumped together AT ALL.

Tim Taylor
No, read chapter 29 exerpt very carefully above. Verse 18 shows you are wrong.


I see your point with verse 18, which is “yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it..”. In both places, I feel the ‘he’ is referring to Nebuchadrezzar only, since his army was already spoken of separately in this sentence, whereas you feel his army is in view as well with the 2nd ‘he’. This is solely going to be a matter of opinion, since, short of asking Ezekiel, we can’t know for sure which he meant by this.


Tim Taylor

No, he does not JUST say “Nebbie and his army.” He talks about the soldiers unless you think talking about heads and shoulders is not talking about soldiers.


Oopsy – I thought that every head and every shoulder was talking about the heads and shoulders of people in Tyre, especially since a head being made bald is a way of saying they were humiliated. I consent that I could possibly be wrong…it wouldn't matter.


Given that, you haven’t shown there is an important distinction between saying “his army” in Ezekiel 29 and “his horses” and “his battering rams” in Ezekiel 26, 9-11.

Perhaps you can explain it, because I don’t see it.


I don’t think you will see my side no matter how many times I explain it to you. I see yours, and it seems that it rests solely on your opinion that Nebby’s army consisted of “many nations” and that that MUST be what Ezekiel was talking about when he spoke of many nations. I will state again that that doesn’t make sense to me.

As far as JP Holding and your vicious attacks of him –

You said in your 1999 e-mail:

“he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article.”

Let’s see if this is true. According to you, his first article said:

Poor King James, people are always pickin’ on him. AS OUR MODERN TRANSLATIONS INDICATE, Gen. 2:19 should say, the Lord God had formed every beast, etc.”

When, as JP ADMITS, he was shown where most modern translations still render the verb in the pluperfect (it seems that JP was reading the NIV version as most of us do), he changed his site to be more accurate. It now says:


"For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (BUT NO OTHER VERSION THAT I KNOW OF) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air."




I’m sorry, but I don’t see where JP lied. I see nowhere on JP’s revised article where it is indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article (as is your accusation). In fact, the opposite is alluded to. Now, it looks like you’ve been caught in lie #1.

Next you say that JP doesn’t provide links. To that I’d say: have you ever visited his site? He does provide links, thank you, and if he didn’t I’m confident enough in my internet capabilities that I could find the text in question. Now, it looks like you’ve been caught in lie #2. Based on your own reasoning, should I trust anything you say anymore?

Hypocrisy is a terrible thing, but don’t worry – we’ve all done it at some point – although most people don’t broadcast it on forums.

[jpholding]

Snowball,

I think Tiny Tim has vamoosed for good -- he also announced a hiatus from the Errancy list today -- but a few thoughts, which include a preview of my revised article which will go up tonight:

Do you see at all the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Zeke is instead starting out by saying “many nations”, then he is zooming in on one particular nation within that many nations

He won't see it, but what I found is that there is indeed a chiastic structure, supported linguistically, that points to a sort of "zoom out, zoom in, zoom out" focus shift between nations as a whole (which can include Nebbie) and just Nebbie himself.

I see your point with verse 18, which is “yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it..”. In both places, I feel the ‘he’ is referring to Nebuchadrezzar only, since his army was already spoken of separately in this sentence, whereas you feel his army is in view as well with the 2nd ‘he’.

Not only so, but Nebbie assumes in Z29 the role only of a leader and what a leader would do.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see where JP lied. I see nowhere on JP’s revised article where it is indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article (as is your accusation).

As noted above I was probably guilty of a technical imprecision in my initial remark -- given that I wrote that as one of my first ever articles (back on the Apologetics Bookshelf), and that I was a lot greener back then. Hadn't even heard of Ben Witherington yet, for crying out sakes. :smile:

He does provide links, thank you, and if he didn’t I’m confident enough in my internet capabilities that I could find the text in question

Ah, don't blame Tiny Tim, he just followed FTill nose to tail on that one. :rofl: And FTill thinks you're too stupid to find his articles. I did provide links to the places FTill asked -- he just can't remember what I told him.

Thank you much for your support. :smile:

[djp229]

Tim,

So long.

You have proved that you do not recognize argument and sound reasoning behind a solid position. Your arrogance does not translate to a winning argument. Do not think you won based on some off hand comments you think show your intellectual superioriy. Again, it is sad when someone debates to the point beyond losing and refuses to see it.
JPH is not my hero, but he's awfully good at what he has decided to tackle. He's not the only one though. He's just fodder for internet based skeptics who have decided that no research, an attitude and freethinking can be associated with well thought and thoroughly researched critiques of the Bible.
Also, you met my expectations by positioning yourself as superior to whoever follows this debate and comes to a conlcusion you don't like. To be effective you need to divorce yourself emotionally from the debate and deal in terms of data only. Do you not realize that you have allowed yourself to be sucked into into a blackhole of denial because you will not allow yourself to see what is all too apparent? You have asked others to repeat the same arguments over and over merely because you don't agree despite the fact that the weight of the arguments against you have overcome your attempt at dismantling JPHs original essay.

Oh well. Move on all.......

[djp229]

To JPH,

Although you are not my "hero", your efforts are greatly appreciated and I for one love your sarcasm. I have laughed out loud many times while reading your essays, and it is because of your wit and syle that I have come to immerse myself in apologetics and a deeper study of the Bible.

Keep up the Good work!!!!

[jpholding]

To all:

I have just now posted an updated version of my article at http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_05_03.htm

DJP:

My thanks for the kind words. :smile: And do we not all note that those most offended by my humor are those who consistently take themselves too seriously?

Johnransom, Snowball, and all others:

I thank you for helping me stave off the wolves. This past week was very busy for me and I could not have done this without your support.