I'm starting a series today on Hector Avalos' book The End of Biblical Studies, which has become the latest darling of the Skeptical set. I'll post and link here for discussion and comments. Avalos I have found is the sort who likes to hang out online, so it's even possible he'll come here for a thrashing. Anyway, here's my commentary on his Introduction, edited for post length. This will be posted on Tekton soon, after a little more review.

Merry Xmas, Hector!


My first knowledge of Hector Avalos was as (supposedly) a partner of Robert Greg Cavin promoting the "evil twin Jesus" theory. There was supposed to be some sort of book in the works from those two, but as far as I know, nothing came of it.

Today, as this is typed, Avalos has become an idol of sorts (albeit not a particularly well-supported one) for his latest diatribe, The End of Biblical Studies. Not surprisingly, this extended temper tantrum comes from the steamworks of Prometheus Press -- the atheist-humanist publisher which is so schizophrenic that it produces everything ranging from serious philosophical works to X-rated videotape guides. (Perhaps normal it would be for a very large, multinational publishing conglomerate, but not for a small press with a specific philosophical orientation and mission.) Early on Avalos delivered a briefer version of the core of this book as a paper to the Society of Biblical Literature. The extended version in this book would undoubtedly never pass academic peer review (not because of its bite the hand mentality, as Avalos would claim, but because of its poor treatment of the data), and so would never appear from a reputable religious press like Fortress or Eerdmans, or doubtfully even Polebridge, though that does remain possible.

Our account will proceed from here with page by page commentary.

15: Here Avalos lays out the mission statement to "end Biblical studies as we know it." The observation is made that the book will "review the history of academic biblical studies as primarily a religionist apologetic exercise."

Herein lies an obvious indication of Avalos' lack of mature argumentation. To point out at all that any field of study is "religionist" or "apologetic" is mere well-poisoning. Avalos would hardly accept as a worthwhile point to make (much less an argument) that his career has been one of "primarily an irreligionist/anti-religionist apologetic exercise." Whining about prior commitment of an author is not an argument or a point, but a way to sway opinion cheaply. Every paper written by any scholar or person arguing for a point of view -- whether true or false -- is an "apologetic exercise." Apologetics can be made for everything from Christianity to Islam to the use of specific spices in a certain recipe to...ending Biblical studies as we know it. To say that something is an "apologetic exercise" or enterprise is precisely nothing worth saying. That Avalos resorts immediately to such descriptors indicates a radical immaturity and weakness in actual arguments (which we will also show).

Avalos further claims that academia is "part of an ecclesial-academic complex that collaborates with a competitive media industry." Much of this is developed in a later chapter of which we will say little, since it is outside our expertise. However, the immediate impression cannot be but one of extreme paranoia on Avalos' part (if not rather a great deal of insane jealousy for lack of attention to his own agenda, as we will see).

16: Avalos refers to "bibliolatry" in the field of Biblical studies. Dr. Jim West has spoken to this use of terminology:

Here’s what he has (amidst a description of the SBL and its membership) - “The main bond is bibliolatry, which entails the conviction that the Bible is valuable and should remain the object of academic study” (emphasis his). I’m not sure why he defines the word ‘bibliolatry’ so idiosyncratically but I suppose it’s so that he can set up academic study of the bible as a straw man. Apparently Avalos believes that members of the SBL worship the Bible- for that, and that alone is what the word ‘bibliolatry” means.

His suggestion, though, that the SBL is populated with persons who bow to the Bible is both inaccurate and unjust. That the Bible is an object of study does not mean that it is an object of worship, any more than mice as the object of study makes those who study them miciolotrists.

What these opening lines suggest, it seems to me, is a desire to excoriate any sort of biblical study and paint those who practice it as foolish toadies. Whether or not readers are convinced by Avalos remains to be seen. What also remains to be seen is whether or not he is able to study the subject at hand fairly or if his own bias will continue to raise its head. His apparent disdain of the lack of objectivity among students of the Bible seems to be matched by his own lack of objectivity concerning those who do study the Bible.

West has hit the nail on the head. Avalos has purposely chosen a loaded word -- "bibliolatry" -- to poison the well. He has also redefined it to suit his purposes. This is not a sign of a reasoned, mature approach by someone who has the truth on his side.

On this page Avalos also lays out his theses, which sum up as follows, and to which we add comments:

1. Modern scholarship has shown that the Bible was written by people whose view of things is no longer "relevant" -- even to most Christians and Jews today.

We can stop here for an important point. Avalos repeatedly bleats the word "relevant" as if by so doing he is making an argument or worthwhile point. In the process, he also contradicts himself and proves himself a hypocrite as well as a demagogue intent on nothing but furtherance of his agenda, regardless of truth. Once again West hits the nail on the head:

What’s fascinating here is Avalos’ absolutely and totally utilitarian perspective- which he applies ONLY to the Bible. If something doesn’t help the world become a better place, it should be done away with. But Hector doesn’t go quite that far. He doesn’t call for an end to baseball, art galleries, Paris Hilton, Fox News, Lindsey Lohan, ice hockey, soccer, politicians, lawyers, or television. Yet to be consistent (which is not what he’s interested in, i.e., consistency) if Avalos really, actually believes that the sole purpose of all human pursuit is the betterment of the world (whatever that’s supposed to mean), then why does he single out the Bible and biblical studies in particular as the biggest offender against human ‘progress’?

Avalos clearly and obviously has a secular humanist ax to grind and he wishes to grind it on the field of study that he himself chose and which continues to feed him and his family. It isn’t the Bible’s failure to contribute to human betterment (but this accusation in and of itself is quite foolish and narrow-sighted- one need simply think of the ethical exhortations contained in the Ten Commandments to realize that Avalos is simply way off base here) that bothers Hector. It’s something else. Biblical studies is just his whipping boy...

(edit for length)

Now I must acknowledge in fairness that Avalos mirrors my own points -- made in other venues -- about how certain portions of the Bible are indeed not "relevant" to modern life and practice. I have indeed told Sunday School members jokingly that they do not need to read Leviticus and have my permission not to (in line indeed with what Avalos says on page 20, though his estimate of "99 percent" of the Bible not being missed is more likely an expression of his own loathing for the text, rather than an honest estimate; my own estimate would be more like 65% of the text, most of it the OT). The flaw here is that Avalos defines "relevance" only in terms of what Hector Avalos (or secular humanism as he sees it) finds important and what he thinks is immediately relevant. And in so doing, Avalos reveals his greatest hypocrisy, as Walters points out:

...He complains that scholars and translators have focused their energies on the Bible as opposed to "thousands of other non-biblical texts of ancient cultures": "In archaeology, new inscriptions, even the most fragmentary and the barely comprehensible, are announced with great fanfare when there is a remote connection to the Bible. Meanwhile, thousands of more complete texts of other cultures still lie untranslated." But by his own admission there is nothing of intrinsic value in works of literature, so why should it matter that these other texts are ignored? If the Bible only retains its relevance and value becuase of the academic sanction of biblical scholars, how much more so would be the case with these other texts?

We will see more about this "intrinsic value" issue later. But more seriously, I would maintain that Christians ought to read such books as Leviticus once or twice in a lifetime; but why if they are not relevant to modern life and practice? The reason is that they are relevant to us in the same way that the practice of family history is relevant to us. That Great Uncle George was an aviator who flew a Sopwith Camel is not "relevant" to getting an oil change done on my car, or making decisions about my health insurance. But only a pedantic fool would rant about someone being interested in (not "obsessed with" which is a matter of degree) what their Uncle George did. As West has noted, there is more to human pursuit than this. If Avalos truly wants a world of utilitarian pragmatism, then it is time for him to clean his own house first. Robert Price writes and reads horror stories on the side -- these don't have any intrinsic value, so when will Hector go to Price's house, thrash Price for his stunning indifference to human need, and then burn his Lovecraft collection? (After all, that paper could have been used to heat the homes of the poor, or produce manuals on how to better humanity.)

Avalos rants on page 17 that the Bible is "a product of an ancient and very different culture." Well, so what? If such a point were made about Avalos' Latino ancestors and their writings, we'd likely hear charges of racism and bigotry bouncing off the ceilings of Avalos' lecture hall until 2035. Normally, that a culture is different invokes a clarion call for tolerance; but we'll see what Avalos' own call is very shortly, and it smacks of bigotry as serious as that of any Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. (Ancient, of course, has nothing to do with anything; as if indeed relevance or truth were decided by looking at a clock.)

Now for the other point to be derived:

2. Biblical studies maintains the illusion of relevance by using flawed methods and power plays.

Whether indeed the methods are flawed -- or Avalos is -- we will discuss within chapter addresses. As for power plays -- what Avalos refers to as "universties, a media-publishing complex, churches, and professional organizations" -- Avalos simply needs to get over himself, as the parlance says. This is a persecution complex at work. If Avalos can't compete in the free market of ideas, he needs to consider whether it is because his ideas are flawed and/or unpersuasive.

The accusation of such power plays is one I have seen before. In my prior work as a prison librarian I received many requests for materials by such writers as Yosef ben-Jochanon, Ivan van Sertima, George James, and others of what is called an "Afrocentric" persuasion. Repeatedly these authors would whine on and on about how the very same elements named by Avalos conspired by the same means -- flawed scholarship and power plays -- to cover up the truth. Am I thereby saying Avalos may be dismissed at once by this means? No; that still has to be proven other ways. However, I am saying that the paranoid power-play plea can be safely ignored. It is "been there, done that....get over yourself." (It is also a way of covering up your lack of quality presentation under every other circumstance I have encountered. How's that for a poisoned well?)

17: I have sympathy for the point that churches try to hide "objectionable" parts of the Bible from members. Recently my (now former) pastor, when reading an account of how David killed hundreds of Philistines to fulfill a dowry for Saul, studiously avoided the word "foreskins" in describing the nature of the dowry. This is wrong to do, and it should be stopped. It is far preferable to show why, as applicable, objections to such content are out of order than to gloss them over.

18-9: Likewise I am sympathetic to the problem of Biblical illiteracy; indeed it has been a "selling point" for many of my ministry activities and I have used some of the very same statistics Avalos cites. However, Avalos fails to recognize the true cause of Biblical illiteracy; it is not because people have read the Bible and decided it is irrelevant, but rather, as Walters has rightly noted:

In the end, I think that Avalos' commentary is a sad reminder of the state of disarray in the SECULAR academy, not the religious community. There is indeed a crisis of purpose in the modern academy, as academicians like George Marsden and C. John Sommerville have been arguing for a long time. But this is due to the postmodern rejection of truth and the suspicion of meta-narratives, not due to an excessive focus on faith-based perspectives. The Christian worldview has the 'cultural capital' to unite the pursuit of learning with real service to humanity, to say nothing of an immensely satisfying conception of "all truth as God's truth" which makes all fields of inquiry valid and significant. Compared to the great intellectual vision of the likes of Augustine and Aquinas of old, or more recently Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd, Hector Avalos' vision seems incredibly thin, excessively pragmatist and very uninspiring.

22: After a few more paragraphs of ranting in the same vein about relevance and Biblical studies as biased, etc. Avalos enters into a critical juncture -- which he passes through as quickly as he can. As West has observed, if what Avalos says is true, then hosts of other fields should likewise be dispensed with. Avalos all too briefly tries to evade the force of this point by pointing to "[p]arallel critiques in other fields of study," particularly English and literature, as professions primarily concerned with promotion and maintenance of their own power." (Though as far as he reports and I can tell, there is no call being made for an "end" to English and literature studies.) As noted, such whining may be taken with a grain of salt: It comes from people who inevitably are whining because they don't get the attention they think that they deserve: With the Afrocentrists, Shakespeare is always studied at the expense of Egyptian literature; for Avalos, his pet Mesopotamian texts (and his special projects on Latino studies and people with disabilities) are suffering because there's too much focus on the Bible. It is not that such studies, to the extent that they are valid, should be neglected, or that they have not been. The texts of cultures other than our own (whatever our culture is) is essential to a well-rounded education. I personally enjoyed Gabriel Garcia Marquez more than I enjoyed Ernest Hemingway. The point is that jealousy and a temper tantrum is not the answer to the matter. In the end, only inconsistency and hypocrisy can come of this, as Walters shows when he sums up Avalos' argument:

Avalos next outlines a bizarre theory of the social construction of value, according to which "Shakespeare's works, for example, have no intrinsic value, but they function as cultural capital insofar as 'knowing Shakespeare' helps provide entry into elite, educated society. The academic study of literature, in general, functions to maintain class distinctions rather than to help humanity in any practical manner."

According to Avalos, Biblical scholars use the Bible in much the same way as a self-preservation device. However, to paint this in an either-or fashion is simply silly, and a reflection of Avalos' ingrained fundamentalist mindset. He whines of seeing SBL scholars allegedly trampling poor people on the way to sessions. Beg pardon, but isn't Avalos assuming that these scholars do not participate in charitable pursuits at other times? Isn't he also assuming that these allegedly-trampled "poor people" are helpless to correct their situation? What exactly does he propose that these scholars should have done? Were there no social services available? Aren't there already numerous (Christian! -- and other religions perhaps as well) charities dispensing aid to the poor? If one of these scholars had handed a homeless person five dollars, would he then whine that they didn't make sure it was spent on food and not alcohol? Are street handouts really a solution? Avalos reduces the matter to an inane level for no other purpose than to slight SBL members unjustly and convict them without evidence.

This sort of whining, however, is little better than the Da Vinci Code canard that "history is written by the winners" -- to which it is properly added, "and complained about constantly by the losers." The proper response in such cases from someone like Avalos would be to make a reasoned case for more attention to what he is doing; in short, to get on the playing field and compete. Instead, like a spoiled child, Avalos decides that it is better to just blow up the field with a nuclear bomb and then let the air out of the ball. Of course, as Walters pointed out, Avalos hypocritically doesn't think that any of this should happen to the part of the field he is working on now. On page 24 he is supposedly going to answer the question, "...why not extend our thesis to all ancient literature?" Instead he rants about why it should be applied to the Bible, and quickly makes the excuse that "[f]ixation on the Bible also diverts attention from the thousands of texts of other cultures that still lie untranslated." Oh? But aren't these texts also "irrelevant" to making life better for humanity? Wouldn't it be actually better to leave them untranslated instead of making the same error as we did with the Bible, according to Avalos, and distracting people from more important things like feeding homeless street people? Avalos can't seem to decide what he wants to do. He wants to level the playing field, but he doesn't want it too level because then he won't be able to work on all those untranslated texts. This is the sort of schozophrenia that comes out of blind, mouth-foaming hatred that might be expected from a former child evangelist venting against his former faith -- but not from a reasonable scholar. In the end this is clear as Avalos declares that his focus is on the Bible because "we perceive [it] to be the most egregious and historically important example." That this excuse happens to give Avalos time to remain employed up until those other Mesopotamian texts are translated should be noticed before too much seriousness is applied to his whining about power plays.

On this page also Avalos rants about anti-Semitism in the Biblical text. He does not argue examples here, so not much can be said in that regard, but he accuses scholars of "paternalistic deception" for allegedly sanitizing such texts. He needs examples to prove this alleged deception; the scholars clearly refer to potential misunderstandings which permit anti-Semitic interpretation, so to refer to them as deceivers is unwarranted without more proof.

26: A telling and honest statement that may explain Avalos' bigotry above: "Phrased more frankly, religious pluralism is good as long as it does not interfere with secular humanism's goals." Now all Avalos needs to do is defend his worldview cogently. That won't happen; on this page we also learn that Avalos became an atheist in high school because it was the "most honest choice" he could make. It is doubtful from his work that Avalos could argue for atheism cogently, and it seems likely that we are enduring his attempt to validate his decision after the fact and that he could defend atheism no better than a high schooler even now. He certainly won't be answering Alvin Plantinga any time soon.

27: Avalos comments that at SBL meetings since 1982, "I have encountered only about a dozen memorable papers." I was unaware that the purpose of academic papers was to entertain Hector Avalos, but let's consider that a moment. The irony in this is that Avalos is forced to admit that his own papers were "not much better" and then in later chapters will whine that few people showed up for his sessions on Latino studies and the disabled. Really? Maybe his papers were just not memorable enough. Or maybe the other scholars saw it as a case of him speaking to particular subjects as an "elite leisure pursuit" of his own preference -- after all, some of them may have wanted to hear sessions on some other ethnic group, like African-Americans, or Swedes, or Pakistanis; or some other group with physical disadvantages, like cancer patients, hemophiliacs, or people with cold sores. (I'll also note the possibility, given Avalos' temper tantrums here, that they knew going to a session with Avalos would subject them to a harangue of the highest order.)

Avalos whines further that he saw few papers geared to "help people live in a better world." As West notes above, however, it is clear that Avalos only cares about this where Biblical studies are concerned. Since that is so, two can play at that game. Avalos apparently spends some time watching squirrels in his yard he has named Rusty and Skippy [11]. Why is he spending so much time watching squirrels for amusement when he could be out feeding a homeless person? What did his playtime with Rusty and Skippy do to make this a "better world"? There's a picture of Avalos wearing a nice suit on his faculty page -- why is he doing so much to promote a vision of capitalistic success and why did he spend so much money on a nice suit when he could have used that money to support orphans? What did his article in the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology in 2003 do to make life better for suffering Serbo-Croatians or starving Bangladeshi? Maybe he'd say he knows better now? Well, what's he doing to show that he has repented of wasting his time with such things as an article on Zechariah Sitchin in Price's Journal of Higher Criticism?

Or maybe Avalos would care to explain how his publisher, Prometheus Press, made the world a better place with their X-rated videotape guide.

In the end, even from this introduction, Avalos plainly reveals himself as nothing more than a childish hypocrite who is working out his anger over his former faith -- and this will be seen further as we look at the chapters were he makes claims of fact about Biblical studies.

Originally posted by jpholding

My first knowledge of Hector Avalos was as (supposedly) a partner of Robert Greg Cavin promoting the "evil twin Jesus" theory.

Dude, you could've just ended the article there and saved some server space.

Originally posted by Darth Executor

Dude, you could've just ended the article there and saved some server space.

Heck, I could have had Rusty and Skippy write the rebuttal and saved some time.

Oddly though, I can't find any more online refs to this supposed project Cavin and Avalos were doing.

EDIT: Hang on -- the title was supposed to have been:

Double Cross: A Logical Approach To The Mystery Of Easter

I'll look for more on that now that I remember the title.

2nd edit: I was wrong -- it wasn't Avalos but a guy named Carlos Colombetti. I'm fixing the Tekton version to reflect this. Can mods please add a note to the above, below the first paragraph, indicating this correction below?

Awesome, a new addition to Tekton!

I can't wait to read the rest of your review, JP.

It's great, but I wouldn't mind seeing an end to non-stop news about Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan.

Originally posted by ApologiaPhoenix

It's great, but I wouldn't mind seeing an end to non-stop news about Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan.

Maybe we can get Hector mad at them for not coming to his SBL seminars on Latino studies.

I just did this bit on the book as part of a section I will probably post the 24th. Avalos is truly one of the most disgusting people I have ever read.

--------------

49-50 Avalos' treatment of Eccl. 2:25 is a tempest in a teapot. He claims that "humanistic" tendencies were covered up by translators who changed the verse from, "for who will eat and enjoy, except for myself" to "for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?" Avalos charges that the change is meant to cover up a "radical" idea of pursuing humanistic happiness and of God being "irrelevant" in the happiness of human beings. "God," he says, is not in the Hebrew text, so translators must be covering up the truth.

Avalos' own retort, however, is laden with abject silliness. He does not discuss any reasons why translators have made this decision, but that it is to hide some sort of nascent humanism is an absurdity; such an individualistic, egocentric sentiment as Avalos imagines would hardly have emerged in an ancient collectivist society! Avalos is reading modern, Western humanism into the text.

So what would the text say and mean? Arguably the emendation to "God" makes better sense of the surrounding context:

24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

On the other hand, 2:25 could read "myself" and could then refer back to all of the enjoyments the author lists in 2:1-11 -- which would make sense as an ironic, sarcastic refrain to the former section detailing the futility of self-indulgence. Altogether, "God" makes better sense of the context, and either way, reading humanism into the text is a philosophical absurdity.

Avalos is clearly has something to hide here, and I found out what that was here (the NET Bible) (I have subbed in asterisks for Hebrew characters I cannot reproduce):

The MT reads [***] (mimmenni, “more than I”). However, an alternate textual tradition of [***] (mimmennu,“apart from him [= God]”) is preserved in several medieval Hebrew mss, and is reflected in most of the versions (LXX, Syriac, Syro-Hexapla, and Jerome). The textual deviation is a case of simple orthographic confusion between * (yod) and * (vav) as frequently happened, e.g., MT **** (tsv ltsv tsv ltsv) versus 1QIsaa 28:10 **** (tsy ltsy ts ltsy); see P. K. McCarter, Jr., Textual Criticism, 47. It is difficult to determine which reading is original here. The MT forms a parenthetical clause, where Qoheleth refers to himself: no one had more of an opportunity to experience more enjoyment in life than he (e.g., 2:1-11). The alternate textual tradition is a causal clause, explaining why the ability to enjoy life is a gift from God: no one can experience enjoyment in life “apart from him,” that is, apart from “the hand of God” in 2:24. It is possible that internal evidence supports the alternate textual tradition. In 2:24-26, Qoheleth is not emphasizing his own resources to enjoy life, as he had done in 2:1-11; but that the ability to enjoy life is the gift of God. On the other hand, the Jerusalem Hebrew Bible project retains the MT reading with a “B” rating The English versions are split on the textual problem: a few retain MT ****** (“more than I”), e.g., KJV, ASV, YLT, Douay, NJPS, while others adopt the alternate reading *****, “apart from him” (NEB, NAB, MLB, NASB, RSV, NRSV, NIV, Moffatt).

This is apparently another textual-critical issue upon which translators have made a specific decision, involving a single Hebrew character and fuller context. Why does Avalos not reveal this to his readers? Why is he playing games and hiding the whole story? The answer is clear: Avalos is little more than a paranoid humanist looking for problems where none exist.

Originally posted by jpholding

I'm starting a series today on Hector Avalos' book The End of Biblical Studies, which has become the latest darling of the Skeptical set.

Holding, you purposely misrepresent Avalos' arguments, or else, you yourself don't understand them. You are either intellectually dishonest, or you're ignorant. Which is it? It's not worth it to me to show you where, but you do. Surely you would still disagree with him even if you correctly represented his arguments, so why not correctly represent what he argues for?

And you simply DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW! Any writing class in High School will tell you how to do this. I'll not bother telling you how, because you either know and refuse to do it, or you don't know and are ignorant. You either willfully write reviews below standard, or you ignorantly think your reviews are written well.

And to think people at TWEB hang on your every word. What a sham! You're either laughing at them while you bask in the sunlight of their ignorant praise, or you are ignorant yourself.

TWEB is not a place for a true debate. Among the Holding and Co., crowd, it's a place for hyenas. There is just too much ignorance here and it's spreading like a disease. The problem is that the infected people don't know they are sick.

Doubting John is so much like Jesus, who else would come and hang out with the lepers and the diseased, to help us, that is why you come right?

Oh I forgot, DJ comes here to get "High".

Get his blood pumping, fuel his flaming fire!

He dares to play with hyenas all for that vigorous elation!

Pump, pump it up!

A true risk taker!

Originally posted by Doubting John

Holding, you purposely misrepresent Avalos' arguments, or else, you yourself don't understand them. You are either intellectually dishonest, or you're ignorant. Which is it? It's not worth it to me to show you where, but you do.

Translation:

I actually hit them spot on, and you have no idea how to rebut it.

The fact is, your poor little ego is wounded because YOU were so impressed by Avalos, and now you feel like a fool for having believed him.

And you simply DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW! Any writing class in High School will tell you how to do this.[

I'm not writing just a "review," I'm doing a DEPTH review, a survey of his writings, you sanctimonious Homer Simpson soundalike.

And to think people at TWEB hang on your every word. What a sham! You're either laughing at them while you bask in the sunlight of their ignorant praise, or you are ignorant yourself.

Hey, how do you like the new blog?

http://debunkingcrap.blogspot.com/

Guess what the Dec. 20 entry is based on...


I'll be posting selections from the next section shortly.

Just posted the next installment. Here are select portions; I'm leaving out the material I posted above on Ecclesiastes, and reprints of older articles I used within the text,

***********
What's in a Word
A Survey of the Temper Tantrums of Hector Avalos: Translations
James Patrick Holding

In this chapter Avalos pursues the thesis that Bible translators maintain the relevance of the Bible "by using translation to hide and distort the original meaning of the text in order to provide the illusion that the information and values conveyed by biblical authors are compatible with the modern world" and that translators also do this work "by distorting and even erasing what is said in the original languages." [37]

The charge has two portions which concern us. The first has to do with relevance, which we have discussed in the Introduction and found to be a case of Avalos causing his own problems. The second charge has to do with the claims of distortion. Of course it is not impossible that distortions happen; my example of the pastor mumming over foreskins serves well as an example. On the other hand, the act of translation inevitably involves honest compromises which only demagogues would say are distortions. The example I like to use is of a Disney poster from the early period of film which featured Mickey Mouse playing a musical instrument, with the banner statement ALWAYS GAY. If this banner were translated for modern audiences, it would no doubt read ALWAYS CHEERFUL or something similar. Yet one can readily imagine activists claiming that there was a conspiracy to hide Mickey's latest homosexuality.

Are the nature of the cases Avalos provides true distortions, or honest attempts to make a text intelligible for a reader in a different setting? We will show that in all cases, Avalos is either out of date on the relevant scholarship or else fails to account for the data competently. Is he in turn "distorting" things? The reader can decide that for themselves without any further help.

38-39: I have no comment on this section, but some words by Dr. West are of relevance:

In the first chapter Hector sets about seeking to prove that the Bible only survives because it has been, and continues to be translated and mistranslated. Evidently Hector believes that if the Bible were no longer translated it would come to a timely end. Oddly, to prove his point, he cites a Spanish translation theorist whose work he (Hector) translates into English.

Apparently, translation is only a bad thing when it comes to the Bible as Spanish translation theorists are fair game for the translator’s art.

The underlying principles with which Avalos is working are beginning to surface. In fact, the entire first part of the book is the unfolding (or I might say unravelling) of his presumption.

First, methodological tools are good - unless applied to the Bible, and then they are bad. Hence, it isn’t the tool that is used or misused or improperly applied that Hector has problems with but the Bible and only the Bible. Part One then, of The End of Biblical Studies shouldn’t be titled How Subdisciplines Conceal Biblical Irrelevance but How I (Hector Avalos) Conceal My Contempt for the Biblical Text and its Students With The Pretence of Methodological Critique. What Hector evidently fails to understand is that the methods he denounces as applied to the biblical text do not intend to conceal but to reveal. It is only because of his a priori disdain for biblical studies that Avalos sees it in the reverse.

43-45 Avalos' first two informational charges may be dealt with together, and they represent old news to us. Avalos charges translators with fraud in evading the "polytheistic nature" of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Gen. 1:1.

Regrettably, Avalos shows himself far behind on the scholarship if this issue. I have kept at the forefront of it because of Mormon use of the same passages. To the end of proving Avalos behind the times, I here offer the linked article above again with added notes in bold for reference to Avalos. (I then reprint http://www.tektonics.org/lp/monoelohim.html -- I'll post some points with notes to Avalos.)

....indicates a multiplicity. In writing against Mattill I noted that his charge was refuted by the fact that Elohim, though a plural form, was paired with verbs in the singular (Avalos admits this -- 45 -- though resorts to the expdient that "it is also possible editors changed plural verbs to singular verbs" which will prove rather amusing when he later in this chapter refuses to acknowledge scribal error as an answer because we lack the originals) -- thus indicating not a multiplicity of beings, but a multiplicity of power or majesty....

....And David makes the selfsame open avowal of the plural gods of Israel: "Israel, whom gods [elohim] went [plural: balk-u] to redeem ... from the nations and their gods [elohim]" (2 Sam. vii, 23). Avalos uses this one as well, claiming it is evidence of "residual polytheism" -- 45)

Thus Avalos has much in the way of gall to claim "distortion" by translators regarding this issue. He is clearly unaware of (or hiding) the above points. Indeed, that he is hiding them seems more likely, for in an endnote [61] he mentions a similar idea by Heiser, which he fails to respond to except by hinting that Heiser has redefined monotheism so that "lesser" gods can exist. But this is once again an obfuscation in terms of what elohim means and whether it ought to be equated with the word god in the sense that Avalos is using it. The issue is whether "monotheism" was a proper word to use in the first place. For this reason, I have preferred the word monolatry to describe Biblical belief; for the word "god" has acquired too broad a meaning, ranging from beings as diverse as YHWH to Zeus to Xochipilli, while elohim is used of what we would call angels (but "god" is not).

46 -- Avalos' next beef is with translators evading that creation from primordial matter is present in Gen. 1:1 (as opposed to ex nihilo creation). Once again, this is all been here, done that for us. (reprint of http://www.tektonics.org/af/exnihilo.html follows)
er.

46-7 Next, Avalos hurls accusations at the NIV for its rendering of Gen. 2:19....again, been there, done that. Avalos only argues against the pluperfect rendering by saying that in Genesis 1:7, "the Hebrew shows no difference in the form of the verb" and yet it is not rendered the same way, so the NIV is "soley motivated by an attempt at nullifying the contradiction." From what I found, however, "the form of the verb" is not all what is at issue: (reprint of relevant portion of http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/creationtwo.html follows)

47-49 The inclusion of this next section in a chapter on translation is an oddity. Avalos rants upon the difference in the age of Jehoachin in 2 Kings vs. 2 Chronicles. Let us reprint our own answer to this:

Was Jehoiachin 18 years old, or 8 (per 2 Chron. 36:9) when he ascended the throne? 18 is more likely, and is supported by one Hebrew mss., some LXX mss., and Syriac mss. Gleason Archer ( Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties , 214-5) states: "A numerical system generally in use during the fifth century BC (when Chronicles was probably composed -- very likely under Ezra's supervision) features a horizontal stroke ending in a hook at its right end as the sign for "ten"; two of them would make the number "20". The digits under ten would be indicated by rows of little vertical strokes, generally in groups of three. Thus, what was originally written over one or more of these groups of short vertical strokes (in this case, eight strokes) would appear as a mere `eight' instead of `eighteen.'" See our foundational essay on copyist errors for general background.

The issue here is therefore not one of "translation" but of a textual-critical decision, and so including it in a chapter on "translation" is indeed most peculiar. Avalos is aware of the answer above (and apparently, a very wacky answer that must have come from his career as a child evangelist -- that Jehoachin reigned twice!), but waves it off as "mere supposition" because "we do not have the original manuscripts." This of course is not a worthy answer (especially since Avalos freely appealed to such activity to the benefit of his own case earlier). Conjectural emendation has always been a standard practice in textual criticism, regardless of the availabily of original manuscripts. The real question, which Avalos will not answer, is whether the conjecture made is reasonable. In this case, it certainly is, for reasons Archer explains. For example, here an author compares NT emendation practice to that of classical works:

The use of conjectural emendation in the classics -- especially those which survive only in single manuscripts -- can hardly be questioned. Even if we assume that there is no editorial activity, scribal error is always present. Thus, for instance, in Howell D. Chickering, Jr.'s edition of Beowulf, we find over two hundred conjectures in the text, and a roughly equal number of places where other sorts of restoration has been called for or where Chickering has rejected common emendations. All this in the space of 3180 lines, usually of four to six words!...

An example comes from Langland's Vision of Piers Plowman. In the editio princeps, which for a long time was the only text available, the very first line read

In a somer seson whan set was the sonne("In a summer season, when >>set<< was the sun")

"Set" is perhaps meaningful, but does not scan. Therefore attempts were made to correct it. The most popular emendation was "hotte," "hot."

The correct reading, as now known from many manuscripts, is "softe," "soft." Thus the proposed emendation, although perfectly sensible and meeting all the desired criteria, in fact gives a meaning exactly opposite the true reading.

(Another example is given from Beowulf.)

One would very much like to see Avalos burst in upon a meeting of classical scholars and harangue them for all of this "supposition" when they don't have the originals. What it boils down to is that Avalos is not a textual scholar -- and his resort to "we don't have the originals" is a childish answer conceptually derived from his former fundamentalist background, when thinking in black and white was acceptable.

Avalos similarly dismisses a textual-critical answer to this issue (who killed Goliath), but treats it no more seriously than did Tim Callahan (and also apparently heard yet another wacky defense in his fundamentalist past, which claimed there were two people named Goliath). Either way he is misclassifying a text-critical issue with translation issues. He is also a hypocrite, for he used such a suggestion himself in spite of not having the original manuscripts.

49-50 Avalos' treatment of Eccl. 2:25 is a tempest in a teapot.... (see above)


50-52 Avalos here treats Luke 14:26, and nothing he says touches our own treatment (reprint of http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesussayshate.html)

Avalos has answers to none of this, and accuses translators of "sugarcoating" Luke 14:26 by properly rephrasing "hate" to reflect the nature of the extreme language. He does offer one "answer" rooted in his fundamentalist mentality: He locates passages where he thinks "hate" is obviously meant literally, and thus, he implicitly argues, Luke 14:26 must be taken literally as well! Of course this is exceptionally foolish; one may as well try to say of the phrase, "it is raining cats and dogs," that we can prove "cats" and "dogs" are meant literally by finding someplace where the person who uses it also says, "I fed my dogs at dinnertime." This is not "arbitrary" as Avalos claims: Scholars have arrived at what he calls the "comparative interpretation" as we have: by comparison with parallel phrases; by seeing that a literal interpetation would be absurd (as well as not indicated by actual practice -- that is, there is no evidence Jesus or later Christians took it literally), and by the social data (as Rihbany indicates).

Furthermore, it is far from clear that all three examples Avalos offers actually indicate literal hate. He actually uses Judges 14:16 and Luke 16:13 as two of them, as we do above! The third, Amos 5:15, does refer to hating evil, and comes closest to what Avalos wants, but his attempt to compare Jesus to a cult leader here fails anyway as an anachronism; for he apparently reads "love" and "hate" in terms of modern emotional attachment rather than practical looking out for an interest (see here).

We do not need to address the matter of using the parallel in Matt. 10:37 (which rephrases Jesus' statement in a less hyperbolic fashion, as one of priority) as an argument, but we will anyway. Avalos says that Matthew can't be used to interpret Luke because we "cannot assume that Luke's readers had read Matthew at the time Luke was written." [51] Why this makes any difference is not explained. It is a given by nearly universal consent that Luke himself had read Matthew and used it as a source, so it hardly matters what any later reader might think -- including readers like Avalos whose fundamentalist mindset leads them to absurd claims such as that the Greek word for "hate" "does not vary and is not subject to as much flexibililty as other words may be." It is sad that someone like Avalos, who possesses scholarly credentials, is patently ignorant of such things as dramatic orientation.

52 -- Avalos then briefly rants about Matthew 19:12, and of course touches nothing we have written (reprint of http://www.tektonics.org/af/eunicize.html)

Avalos is left with weakly suggesting that the verse "might literally involve castration" [52] but "might" doesn't even come close to the truth; it doesn't, except by imagination of the fundamentalist sort.

52-3 There is next a brief analysis of Matthew 5:5 concerning the meek inheriting the earth. Avalos tries to turn this into a reference to Israel only, because, he says, the word used (ge) "probably" did not mean the whole earth. He calls upon the allusion to Ps. 37 as support, where clearly only Israel is meant. To some extent Avalos has a point; but it remains clear, whatever the geographic designations, that the "meek" will be specially favored. If Avalos wishes to argue somehow that the meek will only get Israel, who does he envision God giving the rest of the earth to under this paradigm? Matthew 5:5, even if it only means Israel, just as well grants the rest of the earth to the meek by extension. Avalos' whining here is pointless.

53-56 Avalos offers an extended rant on the TNIV with its gender inclusive language. While I sympathize with this to some extent, we do object to Avalos' ill-informed, one-sentence treatment of 1 Tim. 2:12, which is better analyzed here; see also our analysis here. Avalos is aware of this answer, for he mentions the critical work in an endnote [62], but he does not describe it, much less interact with it, only calling it an "attempt to deny" that this passage prohibits women from teaching. Obviously Avalos has no answer to the arguments made by the Kroegers and wishes to hide them from his readers.

56-8 The last section of this chapter is where Avalos provides data for his earlier brief rant on anti-Semitism. His criticism fails on two major points. First, Avalos makes the common error of equating "Jews" in the NT with the modern idea of a group identified with a specific religion. This is an absurdity since Christian apostles continued to call themselves "Jews". "Jews" in the NT actually means "Judaeans" -- as opposed to something like Samaritans or Galileeans or Romans, people whose origins were in the political entity known as Judaea. Second, Avalos commits a similar end-around as the one he did for Luke 14:26, thinking that if he finds places where "Jews" meant every person in the nation, rather than merely the leadership, he has proven that it must mean "every person in the nation" in the case he wants it to mean that! In particular, he wants Acts 13:50....

The Jews, however, incited the women of prominence who were worshipers and the leading men of the city, stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their territory.

...to mean not just Jewish leaders, or specific Jews, but ALL Jews as a collective identity group! Is Avalos truly so thick as to imagine that Luke is envisioning hundreds of thousands of Judaeans (however he defines them) leaving their home nation and crowding into the synagogue meeting at Antioch for the purpose of inciting a handful of people in that city against Paul??

There is no need to remove reference to "the Jews" in the NT, as some cited by Avalos suggest, in order to subdue violence against modern Jewish persons by anti-Semites (as if they would not make some excuse anyway, once told the truth); what is needed is clarity of meaning, and once we understand that this means "natives of Judaea" it becomes no more "anti-Semitic" than to say something like "the Germans" makes one anti-German. (Avalos may be aware of this answer; he cites Pilch in an endnote [63], but only briefly waves Pilch away by claiming it is he who is imposing his own understanding! Avalos claims that this is shown by the use of the word "Israelites" in Paul's speech, but fails to explain how this is proven by that usage.)

Avalos also needs to get over himself and his claim that it is "anti-Gentile" for Paul to note misbehaviors among Gentiles. This is paranoia doused with political correctness, and beyond that, Avalos merely using Biblical studies, as West observes, as a "whipping boy" to further his agenda.

58 -- For Avalos to charge translators with lying and self-interest is truly the pot calling the kettle black. Avalos has purposely hidden that most of these issues are matters of textual-critical decision; he has also contrived ridiculous arguments to promote his own self-serving agendas (eg, Ecclesiastes teaches modern humanism!).

Originally posted by Doubting John

And you simply DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW! Any writing class in High School will tell you how to do this.

Really?

I'm a senior in high school, and am the best in my class at writing. Holding's review doesn't violate any rule I have yet to come across; In fact, his IN-DEPTH review is better than any review I have ever written.

But I suppose I wouldn't know anything about high school courses.

By the way, how do you know what high school courses are like? Are you still in high school in the "special persons" class?

Originally posted by AngelDragon

By the way, how do you know what high school courses are like? Are you still in high school in the "special persons" class?

I think he got thrown out of that for thinking he was TOO special.

I don't have to "readily imagine [homosexual rights] activists" calling conspiracy theories- I found plenty of such people just trying to Google the image. Or maybe they're "Disney is Gay" people or something. I didn't look too close.

"In this book, Avalos lays out a thesis of religion as a source of unnecessary violence."

He has a point, with Christianity in particular. I mean, look at all the unnecessary violence Christianity caused in the Roman Empire for the first 300 years! If the Christians hadn't been around to get fed to lions or beheaded or crucified, then all of that unnecessary violence could have been avoided! Not to mention the unnecessary violence towards Christians in Russia during the atheist (err, I mean... Communist) era...