Hector Avalos, author of The End of Biblical Studies, takes J.P. Holding of Tektonics Apologetic Ministry to task over his review of his book in this post from a few days ago. J.P. responds with a five part piece on Theology Web: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. To my surprise, the good Dr. Jim West’s name was mentioned by Avalos, and not in the most favorable light. Check it out.
B”H
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth 
The problem with Avalos is that he practices pure ad hominem and is dishonest and not a man of his word. He agreed to discuss his ideas on the Biblical Studies list and rather than doing so he made one reply and then dropped out without explanation.
As to Chris Heard’s demonizing remarks about me- they stem from the fact that he home schools his children and disagrees with me on the subject and hence attempts to denounce me- in the fashion of Avalos, ad hominem.
Neither one of them are worth much worry.
I wonder why he even felt the need to reply to Holding? I thought that was a bit odd.
I was reading through Avalos’ response and what I had read seemed to be a pretty devastating critique of Holding and his review, and then apathy over the whole thing just ended up setting in and I realized I didn’t really care. But it was amusing for a bit.
; )
Blessings,
Bryan L
Jim,
I hear ya. I don’t really know who this Avalos character is, but I can assure you that his denigrating remarks about you have put him on my ‘persons not to give a flip about’ list. Love ya buddy ;)
Bryan,
I don’t know why he felt the need to reply. Probably because Holding is pretty well known in the world of internet apologetics and he saw Holding critique as possibly having some damaging effects. I can’t be certain. But I have to agree that I thought he did well in dismantling Holding’s arguments, but like you, I lost interest quickly. I really do prefer apathy. ;)
Heh. Hector reached far into ancient history for that one.
Chris,
Yeah, I noticed that.
“Dr.” Jim West says:
“He agreed to discuss his ideas on the Biblical Studies list and rather than doing so he made one reply and then dropped out without explanation.”
Actually, I think “Dr.” West simply did not
manage this discussion well. I think he was
even away at the time it was supposed to start.
I did not see much of a discussion after my
first post, and so I actually thought they
had abandoned the whole idea.
Hector,
Don’t you think it a bit childish to keep putting ‘Dr.’ in quotation marks? If you see some sort of problem with Jim’s credentials, then why not opt to simply call him ‘Jim’? We’re all adults here, we should act like it.
And as far as the discussion on the Biblical Studies list goes, I wasn’t aware of it until yesterday and I really can’t see myself getting all that interested in it now.
But all in all I think you did well with Holding. I found his responses less than adequate and I thought he was acting quite childish himself by referring to you as “Dr. Stupid.”