The statement McTill refers to here was actually removed from my re-editing and compiliation of this debate several years ago, which is now found here, and which McTill has ignored for years after scuttling back to the safety of his Errancy List. In the meantime, interestingly, McTill has been flummoxed by one of his own Skeptical readers coming out in defense of there being no contradiction between 2 Kings and Hosea. Quite interesting. At any rate, this is another one of those comments that McTill hopped on with his own interpretation, never getting the point that was actually behind it. We'll see in a moment. First, some words from Mojo Jojo. In the first Farrell Till / [J. P. Holding] Debate, accessible here, [Holding] had tried to defend his position by quoting from commentaries that agreed with his stance. Translation: by quoting commentaries that gave solid, documented reasons for their stance, which McTill couldn't answer. In the debate he had stated, “We point out that our solution from Hosea is reckoned by ‘commentators of all stripes.’” The reference to “we” and “our,” of course, only meant [Holding]. Yep, McTill and his fans just don't like that plural self-reference I like. Too bad. I don't like their haircuts OR their writing style. His mention of “commentators of all stripes” was meant to impress his readership that he had actually consulted a number of differing commentaries and they all remarkably agreed with his point of view. Um, no. That would be Mojo's paranoia talking. The mention of "commentators of all stripes" was meant to forestall McTill's inevitable canard that the answer was only held by "fundamentalist" commentators. Since then I have learned that this, as stated, is pointless to note in discussions with McTill, since if you quote a moderate or liberal with the same view, McTill will just say they are "thinking like an inerrantist". In other words, darned if you do, darned if you don't. Which is much easier for McTill then getting his sorry hiney out and doing some digging. In fact, in the debate, he stated, “my ‘commentators’ run the spectrum from conservative to moderate to liberal.” In the following article, published after the debate only on the alt.bible.errancy newgroup (in November of 1998) and unseen by many, Farrell Till takes a look at these “commentators of all stripes” to see just how far up and down the theological spectrum they actually ran. Broadly enough, actually. But McTill has his own paranoia to sell; it's easier to avoid admitting you have no actual answer that way.

I have not edited Till’s material so you will see reference to his previous unsuccessful attempts to get [Holding] to come and debate him in an open forum which only recently came to pass. An "open forum" like a public website...compared to the confined Errancy List with only 150 members...yep...face it, folks: it's all a smokescreen McTill uses to fool the gullible like Mojo who hang on his every word. For them, McTill is the Word of God. Bind him in black covers with inscribed gold letters and leave him on the shelf. You will also notice that halfway through the article, Till repeats himself as if recapping what he had said previously. This is because in the original format, his responses came in two different posts that were not connected as they are here. No, this is because McTill thinks endlessly repeating himself is a way to distract readers into thinking he is saying more than he actually is. Do beg pardon, but we will edit that extra trash OUT. I try to maintain that sense of posting by placing a bar between the first portion Till had written and the second installment. From this, you will note that my only involvement with this article is the formatting I gave it for presentation here. Other than, uh, the note he adds in the top middle. Yeesh, doesn't Mojo edit his articles for consistency?    

In his "rebuttal" of the apparent discrepancy in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 concerning Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, [J. P. Holding], who writes under the pseudonym "James Patrick Holding," argued that credence should be given to his resolution of the problem, because it represented the thinking of "commentators of all stripes."  In other words, he was claiming that his resolution represented the views of "commentators" who were liberal and moderate as well as conservative. No, actually, I didn't. I was claiming that this forestalls McTill's bananas-in-his-ears attempt to say it's just a solution used by conservatives. As noted, I now know that McTill doesn't care about this, and will lump any liberal into the "inerrantist" category by proxy if necessary. I replied to this argument in my 28-part response, so there is no need to show again that this argument proves nothing for the simple reason that there are many biblical views that are shared by liberal, moderate, and conservative Christians.  That the Bible contains errors, for example, is an opinion that is shared by many liberal and moderate Christians, as well as even some conservatives, but I'm sure that [Holding] would not see this as a reason to change his belief in biblical inerrancy. No, I wouldn't. And it wasn't a reason given to change a belief about whether 2 Kings and Hosea contradict, either. McTill just assumed it was the reason, and stuck his foot in his mouth promptly, yea, eagerly saying so. 

To see just how accurate [Holding]'s claim is that his view of Hosea 1:4 represents the theological opinion of "commentators of all stripes," I have been tracking down the sources that he cited in the article I replied to, and so I will be taking these sources one at a time to see just what kind of "stripes" they are. [Holding] relied heavily on the opinion of Thomas Edward McComiskey as presented in two works: (1) The Minor Prophets, vol. 1, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1992, and (2) "Prophetic Irony in Hosea 1.4: A Study of the Collocation [PQD AL] and Its Implications for the Fall of Jehu's Dynasty," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 58, 1993, pp. 93-101.

I call attention first to the fact that McComiskey's commentary was published by Baker Book House of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and, needless to say, this is not a publisher who is noted for objective biblical scholarship. "I call attention first to the fact that McTill's material was published by Prometheus Books of Buffalo, New York, and, needless to say, this is not a publisher who is noted for objective biblical scholarship." See how easy it is? Much easier than answering McComiskey's arguments, which McTill also did by asking why translations published BEFORE McComiskey's study didn't agree with him. All that one needs to do to check me on this is visit several "Christian" book stores and examine the materials on their shelves. Ta da, just beg the question of their objectivity. "All you have to do is open a Prometheus catalog..."  Besides being generally trite, much of it is published by the evangelical and fundamentalist publishing companies in Grand Rapids. "Besides being generally boring and beyond my ability to comprehend or refute, much of it is published by the atheist and agnostic publishing company in Buffalo.  This, of course, is not intended to mean that McComiskey's view must be considered wrong by virtue of what company published it, but "I will harp and harp on it anyway like a two-faced hypocrite" it does give reason to suspect that the scholarship represented in it may not be objectively impartial or as profound as [Holding] would have us think. As objective as, say, uh, an issue of TSR. Of course.   Just as one would hardly expect to find objective scholarship in The National Enquirer or the NRA Journal, so one would expect that in all probability evangelical or fundamentalist views of the Bible will be found in materials published in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Uh, yeah, apples and oranges. Stuff in the Enquirer and the NRA mag aren't written by people who are scholars with Ph. D's in their field like McComiskey has. By the way, McTill passes right over an evaluation of where McComiskey published his thesis in JSOT. This is a peer-reviewed academic journal that can hardly be called "fundamentalist" or "evangelical". It accepts quality work regardless of the source.  An inerrantist position on the Bible would be one of those views. "An errantist position..." Get it? McTill is toast. Now Mojo has a few words to bark:

I would like to comment here before Till’s article continues. In the time since this examination of [Holding]’s sources was published, [Holding] has written that this line of argument is fallacious. Not sure where this is, but I agree that what McTill THOUGHT I said is fallacious. He claims that simply because an author is published by a certain publishing house, that should not affect his scholarship. While true, I wonder how he would feel if a skeptic quoted in refutation of his material authors published by Prometheus or Shambala? I wouldn't care one bit. I did make fun of Acharya S for publishing with a company that also does books on Atlantis, but that highlighted the uncritical nature of her publisher, not her. And does he really think that his own self-financed venture –Tektonic Plates—is an unbiased source for material related to biblical inerrancy? I thought not. It would be right to think not, since T. Plates hasn't done a book on Biblical inerrancy. The one on Mormonism is "it" and that book doesn't say a word about inerrancy. As for Mormonism, is it an unbiased source on that subject? So far, the vasy majority of my Mormon contacts think so. They do not agree with my arguments, of course, but their best apologists have seen it, and "bias" isn't one of their accusations -- not that I have yet to hear, and not even in the negative review I refer to here. In fact my own former "worst enemy" in the Mormon camp, Kevin Graham, was so pleased by my objectivity and fairness that he offered to pass out copies of the book at the main Mormon apologetics conference. Seems that the LDS are a lot more mature as a whole than the Skeppies are. Even with the reviewer noted, they know better than to use stupid arguments like, "It was published in Grand Rapids!" and we don't use stupid arguments back like, "It was published in Salt Lake City"! It's even more amazing that Paranoia McTill and Mojo think they can justify such a stupid tactic by saying, "Yeah, well, you'd do it too!"

An examination of McComiskey's commentary increases suspicion that this just may not be an objective biblical reference work, because it turns out that McComiskey is a "professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Biblical Theology" at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Which of course entirely annuls any argument he makes.   For those who may not know, this is the same "divinity school" where Gleason Archer teaches. Archer, as many reading this will recognize, is probably the chief guru of biblical inerrancy, and is known primarily for his book Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, a work that is heavily relied on by biblical fundamentalists looking for "solutions" to Bible discrepancies. Psst, and McTill once shook hands with Al Sharpton. Pass it on!  In the introduction to this work, Archer gave the following advice to his readers who encounter problem passages in the Bible:

Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. Sounds like the sort of advice a history professor might give to a student stumped by a difficulty in Tacitus...anyway...

In other words, Archer's advice to his readers is that they approach the Bible with the assumption that it is inerrant, "The professor's advice is to approach Tacitus with the assumption that he deserves the benefit of the doubt..." and even when they can see no explanation to an apparent discrepancy, they should still assume inerrancy. "...and even when they see no solution to the problem, to assume that Tacitus, because he was actually there, knew what he was talking about, whereas we were not there and cannot simply assume it." Common textual courtesy. Now it may be that McComiskey does not share Archer's view of the Bible, but I suspect that he does, because it would be unlikely that he would be on the staff of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School unless he did accept the premise of biblical inerrancy. And it would also be hard for McTill to argue guilt by assoication fallaciously to stack on top of that fallacious argument by ad hominem. All of which is much easier than finding out about the nuances of Hebrew.  In examining his commentary, I saw no suggestion at all that he is not a biblical inerrantist. Indeed, everything seemed to be written on the premise that he was commenting on a book that contained God's dealings with his chosen people. "In his newsletter, I saw no suggestion that McTill is not a Biblical errantist..."

At this stage of my investigation into [Holding]'s "commentators of all stripes," it appears very likely that he used only two or three primary sources, even though his endnotes contained 17 listings. Pooh, yah. Watch this:  Although I won't know until I have been able to look through all of the books that [Holding] cited, Which will be in about, oh, 745 years I suspect that he pulled a ploy that was very familiar to me from my days of teaching college writing. I suspect McTill peddles pornography in his spare time. There, now, wasn't that authoritative?  It was quite common for students to find two or three primary references that contained within them quotations or references to other works and then try to present the secondary references as works that they had consulted in researching their papers. In such cases, a bibliography of 20 entries may represent only two or three books that were consulted during "research." Sure. Every one of my 17 sources for that work was at the Reformed Theological Seminary library in Orlando, except for a couple I found at the Long's Christian bookstore in Orlando. McTill is just hauling a cheap bale of slander because he can't answer the actual argument.  McComiskey, for example, referred to the opinions of Francis Andersen and David Noel Freedman, and so in [Holding]'s "rebuttal" of my article, he mentioned the same opinions of Andersen and Freedman that McComiskey had cited, and then Andersen and Freedman were listed in [Holding]'s endnotes. Um, yeah. A and F's commentary is on the same shelf as McComiskey's, actually. Close enough for McTill to hit them with slander.   McComiskey cited these two, along with James Luther Mays, Hans Walter Wolff, and Leon K. Wood, as "modern commentators" who have views on Hosea 1:4 that were different from his, and this was done in a short paragraph of only eight lines.  All of these names, however, turned up in [Holding]'s endnotes as works that he had consulted. Mays and Wolff's commentaries and Wood's work are also on the same shelf area -- duh ah, does that make sense to McTill? Did [Holding] actually consult all of these works, or did he just kill six birds with one stone by consulting McComiskey's commentary and then listing McComiskey's five secondary sources as works that he had also consulted? I killed one big bird, full of baloney, named McTill.   He may have consulted them all, "Just in case, let me cover my butt" but I will be better able to make a judgment about this after I have seen all of their works too in the year 2150.  For now, it seems at least possible that these six listings represent only one source that [Holding] actually consulted in the writing of his article. "For now, leaving a slanderous accusation in your mind, gullible reader, will be sufficient."  At any rate, it was misleading of [Holding] to claim that his view of Hosea 1:4 represented the opinion of "commentators of all stripes," because of the six listed above, only McComiskey agreed with [Holding] (or to be more accurate, only [Holding] agreed with McComiskey). McComiskey specifically cited Andersen, Freedman, Mays, Wolff, and Wood as "modern commentators" with views that disagreed with his, so that would hardly constitute a consensus of "commentators of all stripes." Sorry, but actually, Andersen and Freedman do agree, though for different reasons -- they come at the answer from a different perspective, but agree with McComiskey's view. They are liberal-to-moderate, so there are your stripes.  In McComiskey's article in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Which McTill doesn't want to tell you is a peer-reviewed journal McComiskey even noted that Andersen and Freedman said on page 175 of their commentary that "(c)learly [pqd dam 'al] means to punish the house of Jehu for murder," so certainly the "stripes" of these two commentators can't be considered in agreement with [Holding]'s (McComiskey's) spin on Hosea 1:4. Unless they come at the matter a different way, which they did: As I noted, "Andersen and Freedman acknowledge the viability of the 'visit' translation and accept the same explanation of the issue as we have, as noted below. However, they stick with 'punish' and reject a 'visit' translation because 'its vacuity misses the juridical connotations of the idiom.' In other words, they use 'punish' because of problems with the vacuity of our language - not because of the Hebrew!" At this point, it is obvious that the view of Hosea 1:4 that [Holding] presented in his article was the opinion of only one commentator of a very inerrantist stripe, and that was Thomas Edward McComiskey. At this point, McTill decided he could sit his sorry tuckus back in the easy chair. This was so much easier than actually proving McComoiskey wrong!  On the matter of what "paqad" meant in Hebrew, [Holding] simply parroted McComiskey's view back to his readers, and praised himself for in-depth scholarship. And McTill simply pretended that calling it a "parroted" view was an actual answer, as he usually does when he doesn't have the intellectual cajones to give an actual answer.

As I continue to receive the books that [Holding] cited, I will post further evaluations of his "commentators of all stripes." "It will take about 500 years, and my opinion is solid gold, since I have the authority and competence to judge scholars."  In doing so, I intend to keep readers reminded of a gross inconsistency in [Holding]'s view on the value of quoting commentators.  In his article that I answered, he repeatedly paraded before his readers that his view represented the thinking of "commentators of all stripes," and so that somehow gave more credibility to his view. As noted, wrong interpretation.   On another internet list, however, [Holding] completely ridiculed the notion that quoting sources gives support to one's views. As noted here, another Till-billy yeehaw interpretation. We'll skip the drivel where McTill rehashes all of this and applies it to the current issue; you can read about it at the link.  The next one I expect to receive is Douglas Stuart's commentary on Hosea and Jonah. I noticed in [Holding]'s endnotes that it was printed by "Word" publishers in Waco, Texas, so I'm betting in advance that this will turn out to be another fundamentalist publishing company.  We'll just have to wait to see. The Word series is a mix. Stuart seems to be in the middle, but I'm not sure.

I will remind readers too that I have challenged [Holding] to debate this issue on an open internet forum that will allow readers to see EVERYTHING that both of us post on the subject. Ahhh....there's that EVERYTHING stricture McTill denies ever making....thanks, Mojo.  This would eliminate "selective quoting" of an opponent as [Holding] has done in his articles that purported to be "replies" to my materials. "Selective quoting" which McTill has yet to prove had any effect on his argument, other than making it less boring.   When readers see EVERYTHING that both sides have to say, they can better evaluate the respective positions. [Holding] has declined this challenge. Mustard with that crow, McTill? He's sorry now that he's had to sit on that EVERYTHING cactus for a few weeks...in the next section McTill re-re-re-peats his findings above; we go right to:

In addition to McComiskey, [Holding] quoted at length Douglas Stuart on the meaning of "paqad" in Hosea 1:4, so I turned next to investigating Stuart's theological leanings. Which of course, was much easier than investigating Stuart's arguments...  From his commentary, World Biblical Commentary: Hosea-Jonah, volume 31, World! Try "Word". If McTill can't get the title right, how can we trust him, blah blah blah blah... I learned that Douglas Stuart received his Ph. D. from Harvard University and is a professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Oops. Darn. Means we can't say he learned at a fundamentalist Bible college like Bam Bam....maybe he has some other bad habits like burping in public...  The World Biblical Commentary series was published by "Word Publishers" in Waco, Texas. Duh ah! And from this McTill didn't get the clue that it wasn't the WORLD Bilical Commentary series...now how unobservant can you get?! I know, I know! Ask me to pay for 90% of your website!   The publisher's very name implies a belief in the fundamentalist view of the Bible, The name "Prometheus Books" implies what, now? but if there is any doubt about whether this is a fair conclusion, the "Editorial Preface" removed it. And removed all validity to their arguments, too! Pfft!  Speaking about their purpose in publishing the World Biblical Commentary, Which wasn't what they published. Nah, it was the Word Book Encyclopedia! the editors said, "First, we have tried to cast a wide net to include as contributors a number of scholars from around the world who not only share our aims, Yep, they need to go out and find people who violently disagree with 'em for McTill to be happy. but are in the main engaged in the ministry of teaching in university, college, and seminary.  They represent a rich diversity of denominational allegiance. The broad stance of our contributors can rightly be called evangelical, and this term is to be understood in its positive, historic sense of a commitment to scripture as divine revelation, and to the truth and power of the Christian gospel" (second paragraph in the Editorial Preface).  In other words, the editors of the World Biblical Commentary Word! Word! Yeah, he sure read the Preface close, but forget the heck everything else, including what's inside, which to McTill is about as complex as nuclear physics! volumes frankly admitted that they had selected writers who had a preconceived notion that the Bible is a divine revelation. Which of course makes all of their arguments invalid. Case closed? If not, why does McTill even need to mention it or write pages and pages about it?

In the "Author's Preface," Stuart himself implied the same bias: Bias! And McTill is 100% bias free, which means this is all he needs to do to refute every word Stuart says... "I have kept in mind that preachers are the single biggest group of commentary buyers and users, and that they are best served by commentaries that emphasize lasting theological concerns in proper balance with people's immediate, practical, personal or corporate questions."  Prior to this, he had said that "the only firm justification" for the existence of a commentary is that it must "constantly and carefully help its readers know what God has said and what they are supposed to do about it."  Hence, it is evident from Stuart's own words that he is a believer in the traditional view that what the Bible says is in reality "what God has said," and he made it his aim to write a commentary that would simultaneously reflect this view and appeal to preachers, who are the biggest users of commentaries. Duh, yeah, they usually don't get many buyers from the Butchers' Union..."Hosea-Jonah for Meatcutters"  So much for the objectivity of this author. So much for McTill actually addressing a word this author says. So much for the ashes of that straw man.

In his preface, Stuart informed readers that he would not follow in this commentary the usual practice of "giv[ing] ample space to summaries of the views of other major commentaries," because "such dialogue is terribly difficult to carry on fairly and consistently without short-changing others' arguments."  Hence, he warned that he had "consciously restricted [his] summaries of other commentators' views" so that he could "maximize productive use of the space allotted to [him] by dwelling directly on explaining for the reader what [he] think[s] the biblical text is saying." In reading the commentary, one will find that this was indeed the case. He rarely quoted other commentators, although I couldn't help noticing that he would sometimes follow very closely the content found in Hans Walter Wolff's commentary on Hosea. Sometimes? How often? And why is this an issue? Does McTill think Stuart would regard Wolff as 100% wrong? If the subject is the same, isn't some "following" inevitable? McTill uses this excuse to avoid answering arguments also.  Wolff, by the way, was one of the commentators of "many stripes" that [Holding] referred to in his article, and Wolff was also cited by McComiskey in his commentary on Hosea.  As noted above, however, McComiskey referred to Wolff as a scholar who thought that Hosea 1:4 meant that the house of Jehu would be punished for the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel. In looking through Stuart's commentary, I didn't see any quotations from Wolff; however, Stuart did say in his preface that he was indebted to the "work of Mays, as well as that of Wolff, Freedman, and Andersen," all of whom were writers that both McComiskey and [Holding] cited. Wheeee, yeah. And this proves, what about the meaning of paqad in Hos. 1:4?

Since Stuart paid special tribute to Wolff and since McComiskey quoted him as a scholar whose opinion was worthy of consideration, let's see what Wolff said about Hosea 1:4.  In Hosea, by Hans Walter Wolff, translated by Gary Stansell, Fortress Press, pp. 17-18, Wolff said the following, which I am quoting at length so that I can't be accused of quoting him out of context. In other words, McTill is afraid of being pinned maliciously and without basis for the same thing he pins others for maliciously and without basis. Guilty conscience, McTill? Most of Wolff's quote has nothing to do with the issue at hand; here is the part where we get to it:

Wolff tried to minimize the obvious problem that his conclusion poses to the traditional view that the books of the Bible were "inspired of God," for he went on to say that "(w)e probably should not conclude, however, that this represents a conscious opposition to them [the prophetic circles gathered around Elijah and Elisha]." Oh, sure! Wolff was in on a conspiracy to make McTill's life harder....  He explained that this was probably what happened because "(i)n Hosea's earliest period, there was yet no connection with the prophetic traditions of the ninth century."  In other words, Wolff seemed to be saying that Hosea was clearly in disagreement with the assessment of Jehu's actions in 2 Kings 10:30, but he should not be faulted for this because he didn't know that "the prophetic circles gathered around Elijah and Elisha" had approved of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel.  I find Wolff's belief that Hosea was unaware of the praise that prophets had earlier heaped on Jehu to be very likely, because more than a century separated Jehu and Hosea, and the distribution of writings in that period was certainly not what it is today, not even to mention that 2 Kings was written well after the time of Hosea. It doesn't matter to me whether they knew of one another or not.  Hence, it is very likely that Hosea didn't know that another biblical writer would later indicate that earlier prophets had approved of Jehu's massacre, but that is really beside the point. Yes it is, but he brought it up anyway.  McDowell's claim in ETDAV was that the Bible is unique in that it is perfectly harmonious in its themes, but this is patently not so. Wolff, one of [Holding]'s "commentators of all stripes," has clearly expressed his view that prophetic circles before Hosea had assessed Jehu's actions entirely differently from Hosea's opinion of them. Which fails to answer a single point against my argument.  That hardly constitutes perfect harmony, and it certainly shows that [Holding] was very deceptive in trying to make his readers think that all of the commentators that he mentioned in his article agreed that there is no conflict between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4. This was obviously not so. After this McTill again describes in detail his abuse of the CCBE quote, then:

So once again we find [Holding] speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Once again we find McTill listening with neither side of his head.   When he quotes writers, he thinks that this should carry weight, but if an opponent quotes writers who disagree with his view, [Holding] claims that it doesn't prove anything. Again, this is based on McTill's miapprehension of what the CCBE quote was all about.   Furthermore, I have taken his own sources and shown that they disagree with him 5 to 2 on the meaning of Hosea 1:4. No, actually, Andersen and Freedman agree with me in the final analysis, so it is 4 to 3, my favor.   Thus, by his own logic, I have "won" by showing that of his own "scholars" more of them disagree than agree with him. Nope, he lost by a smaller margin. And we didn't even get to see him actually confront the linguistic arguments.  This is in addition to the fact that [Holding] misled his readers by leaving the impression that he was quoting "commentators of all stripes" who thought that Hosea 1:4 did not pronounce vengeance or judgment on the house of Jehu.  An examination of his sources shows that this was not true. An examination of McTill's head shows that it is empty. No, I have the liberal-moderates Andersen and Freedman. All stripes present and accounted for.

I will remind readers that I have proposed to [Holding] that the two of us engage in an on-line written point-by-point debate that will allow readers on both sides of this controversy to see EVERYTHING that both of us post. I'm confident enough in my position and my ability to sustain it to make this proposal, but [Holding] refuses to accept the challenge. Until recently. And now McTill is saddle-sore from that EVERYTHING demand and wishing he hadn't opened his mouth. Arguing about where a book is published will only take you so far in an argument, but that's the road as far as McTill can drive on it.