Kipp Davis has composed three videos about my work that now amount to dishonest slander. Because once you make mistakes and find that out—but keep repeating those false statements anyway, rather than correcting them—you’ve transitioned from merely being in error to being a liar. One might insist instead that Davis is just phenomenally incompetent, but at this point, he’s had the truth demonstrated to him repeatedly, so incompetence is no longer a plausible explanation of what he is now doing. Nevertheless, for most of this article I will assume Kipp Davis is merely incompetent. I will use that framing for his third video to teach you how real scholars actually approach questions like ours, and contrast that with the careless, amateurish, armchair methods Kipp Davis has chosen to employ—for reasons yet to be explained; he has a relevant PhD, so he knows how to do this properly, and indeed will be lying again if he disagrees with anything I say here as to the proper scholarly methods he should be deploying instead. His dissertation advisor and examiners would bow their heads in shame.

Background

This all started with Davis’s first video about On the Historicity of Jesus, mainly focused on my definitions section and Element 5 of my chapter four on pertinent background knowledge (which is material all equally compatible with the historicity of Jesus; Davis repeatedly mistook it as arguing against the historicity of Jesus). There I assumed he just didn’t read my work at all carefully, thus explaining why he got everything about it wrong, and attributed arguments to me I never made, and ignored the arguments I actually did make, and actually ended up confirming what I argued while weirdly thinking he had refuted it: see Kipp Davis’s Selective Confirmation and Ignoring of Everything I Actually Said in Chapter 4 of On the Historicity of Jesus. I gave some advice there that would prevent him making these same mistakes in ensuing videos. He ignored my advice. In his second video he doubled down on all the same mistakes: see And Then Kipp Davis Fails to Heed My Advice and Digs a Hole for Himself.

In Davis’s third video, which he says is his last, he opens with reiterating his false claims about my arguments in Element 5 of OHJ. I have since confirmed over thirty experts in Hebrew or the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with me and not him, including his own dissertation advisor. So now you know you cannot trust his misrepresentation of what I argued or its competence or merits. I already addressed his false statements about the evidence and my arguments in my previous two responses (especially regarding the Wisdom of Solomon and 11QMelchizedek). And I documented the thirty-plus experts siding with me against him in my previous article, Some Controversial Ideas That Now Have Wide Scholarly Support. So his claim that my arguments are “incompetent” is decisively false. This represents Kipp’s first abject failure as a scholar in all these videos…

Rule One:

• Real scholars check what the peer-reviewed literature says about a dispute before claiming to know what that is.

Below, we will see Davis make this mistake again quite centrally in this new video. But in general, if you do not follow this rule you cannot claim to be a competent scholar. Thus the fact that Kipp didn’t check whether dozens of Scrolls and Hebrew experts actually affirm my same conclusions in Element 5 demonstrates gross incompetence. By calling me, instead, incompetent, he is absurdly claiming dozens of his expert peers incompetent—including his own dissertation advisor! An own-goal more catastrophic to Kipp’s credibility I cannot imagine. The fact is, everything I argue in Element 5 is mainstream and accepted by numerous specialists in these materials and languages. At no point do I “incompetently” treat any of it. But by not checking to see if his peers agreed I was right, Kipp demonstrates he’s the one who is incompetent here.

Davis’s second abject failure as a scholar is not correctly representing what I argue—at first I thought, because he was reading incompetently (rage-skimming, missing things, making assumptions not in the text); now I think it’s because he lacks professional ethics. He decided not to honestly represent what I said and didn’t say; I guess for monetized clicks? (I cannot guess what other reason he has.) Because he was repeatedly informed and given multiple opportunities to correct his errors. A scholar who acts like this is a pseudoscholar. He is not performing his moral duty as a scholar to understand and correctly convey to his viewers and readers the peer-reviewed literature of his own field. So…

Rule Two:

• Real scholars take care to correctly understand and convey the peer-reviewed literature they are discussing, and agree they are morally obligated to correct any substantive mistakes they make when doing that.

I’m not talking about poor wording or oversimplifications or other minor errors easily corrected without substantive impact. I am talking about substantially misrepresenting the literature, saying it says things it doesn’t, claiming it didn’t say things it does—serious errors that any honest scholar would correct.

Secondarily, it is unfortunately accepted in the field to botch an argument (ignore crucial evidence and arguments while claiming to have responded to them, as Kipp repeatedly does in all three videos), but that is still not considered effective. Every honest scholar alive will respond to such a rebuttal, “You have failed to meet the argument, Sir.” Indeed, most scholars would agree that this is suspicious and unworthy behavior. I dare suspect even Kipp Davis would say that—unless cornered and forced to defend this as actually ethical, lest he convict himself. But then, I imagine, he will switch masks and argue for it being unethical as soon as that same behavior is directed at him (his religious background evidently never conveying any sense of The Golden Rule).

Element 6

In this third video, Davis moves from Element 5 to my Element 6, which states simply, “The suffering-and-dying servant of Isaiah 52–53 and the messiah of Daniel 9 (which, per the previous element, may already have been seen by some Jews as the same person) have numerous logical connections with a man in Zechariah 3 and 6 named ‘Jesus Rising’ who is confronted by Satan in God’s abode in heaven and there crowned king, given all of God’s authority, holds the office of high priest, and will build up ‘God’s house’ (which is how Christians described their church).” I go on to reference a later Element 40, where I expand on this from the perspective of the first-century Jewish interpreter Philo of Alexandria. I only commit one actual error here: I should have made clear here that I make an argument for that point there, rather than give the mistaken impression it required no argument. I assumed readers would check the referenced section to learn that, but that assumption can mislead readers like Kipp who are complaining about the contents of a book before they have completed it.

In any event, I made a prediction of the much more serious mistake Kipp would make here before his video came out (proving I have psychic powers…er, I mean, proving I have his number, and sussed the incompetent methods he keeps using, and thus I could easily predict what mistakes he would make):

I fully expect Kipp will continue not to heed my advice. And so I will make a prediction. Just wait and see…

In his third video I know he will critique arguments in Element 6. Since he is critiquing the book before finishing it, he hasn’t read Chapter 5 and Element 40 where I make an argument for a point in Element 6 that I there state as established already (I should not have; I should have put qualifying language and pointed out the case is made in the next Chapter, so I have that marked already for a future revision): the fact that some Jewish interpreters were regarding Jesus as the Anatole in Zechariah 6 rather than (as was likely intended originally) Zerubbabel.

The position I take is actually normal in the field, not something I made up. But Kipp is lazy. He won’t follow Rule 1 of Critical Thinking and ask, “Is this a position any other scholars take?” He will just assume he knows the answer, and take the pose that no “competent” scholar would think this. I will then cite at him all the very competent scholars who think this (and their very sound reasoning).

So he will have put his foot in his mouth twice again: by not checking the literature, and thus exposing again his incompetence by wrongly accusing me of incompetence; and by not noticing, again (per my subsequent comment), that we are talking about Jews who were looking for messianic messages in these passages (pesher), and not Jews who were looking for their original historical meanings.

As someone who is a Dead Sea Scroll expert, to not understand how pesher works is astonishing to me. And I know he does know that. He just “forgets” all he knows whenever criticizing me. For whatever reason.

Dollars to doughnuts he does this. Just watch.

Bingo! He did it.

Davis Didn’t Check The Literature

Of course I could first point out that Davis completely ignores the actual claim I make in Element 6: which is to the possibility of someone reading the texts as I suggest; I do not claim that’s how everyone read them. I don’t even argue anyone did; only that they could have. My exact words: “I am not here declaring Christianity was born from making this connection, only that it is certainly plausible to hypothesize it was” (OHJ, p. 82). I then say “I will provide further evidence for that being the case in Element 40,” which Kipp declares he will ignore. That causes him to make an even greater mistake. But we’ll get to that. I also make an argument to probability in Element 6 (“Such a coincidence cannot be ignored … Would Christians really have been that lucky, that all this connected so obviously?” p. 83) that Davis ignores. His theory thus requires a highly improbable coincidence that mine does not; which entails my theory is more probable than his. Davis never mentions this argument, nor responds to it. So every honest scholar alive will respond to his rebuttal, “You have failed to meet the argument, Sir.”

But let’s set that all aside (even though all that destroys Kipp’s entire video already). Instead, let’s focus solely on his central claim: that I am “wrong” because the original authors of Zechariah meant the Anatolê to be Zerubbabel, not Joshua (Jesus). This is a display of Davis’s incompetence, first, because neither I nor anyone who would be constructing a pesher out of Zechariah is talking about what “the original authors” meant. To the contrary, the entire point of pesher (Christian or Qumranite) was to read new secret meanings out of scripture that foretell future (or recent) events, not long past ones. By definition, composers of pesharim do not care about the original historical meaning; that is not what they are attempting to discern. By definition they are trying to find a different meaning, one they can claim is to happen at the end times.

So no one who constructed a pesher out of Zechariah 6:12 could have thought the Anatolê there was Zerubbabel, because he’d been dead for centuries. It would have to be some future figure. Philo thinks it refers to no human at all, but a cosmic eternal superbeing (more on that shortly); but, proving my point, he didn’t think it was the historical Zerubbabel. And thus neither would any messianic interpreter of the passage. That is the point of Element 6: I am talking about what someone could think about Zechariah 3 and 6 if they applied the logic of pesher to it. Since that is my actual argument, and Davis never responds to that argument, his third video is actually completely non-responsive to my Element 6.

But an even more devastating display of Davis’s incompetence is his failure here to engage Rule 1: real scholars check. If he had acted like a real scholar, and not like an armchair amateur, he would have found that what I am saying about Zechariah 6:12—that the Anatolê appears to be Jesus there now, not Zerubbabel—is a standard conclusion in the field. It is not only accepted without argument in peer-reviewed studies by distinguished scholars, it is smartly argued for in others. Kipp Davis is supposed to know this. Any competent scholar would either already know it (because, being an expert, they are familiar with the literature and thus know things like this) or would soon know it because, knowing they haven’t checked so as to know, they would first ask themselves, “Wait, is that what any scholars besides Carrier say?” They would know they had better check first before publishing a video lambasting as incompetent what is in fact a widespread expert conclusion of their peers.

This is how I conduct myself. Of anything I think to say in rebuttal on some scholarly point like this, I always ask, “Wait, is that true?” And I check first to make sure. That is probably the single most significant thing that makes the difference between an expert and an amateur. And somehow, despite earning a PhD in this field, Kipp never learned it—or conveniently forgets it, for clicks or whatever. You’ll see this difference between Davis and I in how much scholarly research and citation I have done on this debate, and how little he has done. I checked dozens of scholars and studies before accusing Davis of being incompetent; and I only could be sure he was incompetent after I found out, having checked; and now I am citing and quoting them to prove it. I did that in my last article. It’s about to happen again right now.

In fact I did that already, when Neal Sendlak incompetently tried to make exactly the same argument as Kipp (that’s how far Davis has abandoned his skills—he is conducting himself as poorly now as an amateur internet crank). As I pointed out then, there are scholars who simply accept my conclusion on this without even seeing any need to argue for it. For example, in The Johannine Exegesis of God (de Gruyter 2004), Daniel Sadananda simply says “in Zechariah 6 God commands” Zechariah “to crown ‘Joshua’ the High Priest as King” (p. 31), and hence the Anatolê. He cites several scholars concurring. For example, Wayne Meeks, who in The Prophet King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Brill, 1967) explains that yes, originally that passage may have referenced Zerubbabel but by the time of the first century that reading was lost, and the passage at that time said “to crown Joshua the High Priest as king” (pp. 71-72). This understanding of the passage also passed peer review without comment in my book, too; and again in Raphael Lataster, Questioning the Historicity of Jesus (Brill, 2019), pp. 303-08.

Indeed, I am not aware of anyone in the peer-reviewed literature who discusses this passage in its later messianic context (as opposed to its original context, or that of Jews trying to discern that instead of its possible apocalyptic sense) who disagrees with my reading here. Quite simply, most experts would agree Philo (as many other Jewish exegetes) probably read Zechariah 6 as declaring Jesus the Anatolê and not Zerubbabel. But since, even after being warned to check, Davis still ate his foot on this, and since he might attempt the slimy apologetic tactic of claiming only “a few obscure scholars” say this (Meeks!?), let’s groan and accumulate citations just to beat Kipp’s horse dead. And do click the linked names. These people are not randos. Ready? Here we go:

• In the peer-reviewed Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 5.2 (Spring 1994), Frank Holbrook, once even editor of that selfsame journal, wrote “Christ’s Inauguration as King-Priest,” wherein he assumes that by the first century the Anatolê came to be understood as Joshua, regardless of what was originally intended.
• In the peer-reviewed Journal of Biblical Literature 103 (1984), Bruce Malchow wrote “The Messenger of the Covenant in Mal 3:1,” in which he points out this verse was “probably originally a description of the messianic crowning of Zerubbabel,” but “after he disappeared and the high priest became the political leader of the community, someone altered the text and substituted Joshua’s name for Zerubbabel’s,” and “Thus, the passage became a description of a royal priest,” and therefore the Anatolê was switched from its original meaning, as a title of Zerubbabel, into a title of Jesus—all before the time of Philo.
• In the peer-reviewed Hebrew Annual Review 11 (1987), Beth Glazier-McDonald wrote “Malʾak habbərît: The Messenger of the Covenant in Mal 3:1,” in which she quotes Malchow (above), and concurs in taking this verse to by then have been understood (indeed, even intentionally) as referring to Jesus, rather than Zerubbabel.
• In the peer-reviewed Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34.2 (June 1991), Meredeth Kline wrote “The Structure of the Book of Zechariah,” in which he argues that Jesus had come to be understood as the Anatolê, unifying the offices of king and priest (and subsequent references to there being “two” were regarded as the two offices, not two persons, thus eclipsing any role there may have originally been for Zerubbabel).
• In The Book of Zechariah (Eerdmans, 2016), from the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Mark Boda observes regarding the Anatolê that there is “evidence of later revisions which shifted this original hope” in Zerubbabel “onto other royal figures from the Davidic line or the present priestly figure of Joshua” (pp. 384–85), and that some scholars “have interpreted this reference to ‘Sprout’ [in the corresponding Hebrew] as identifying Joshua, especially since the prophetic sign-act involved placing a crown on the head of Joshua in 6:11 and the continuation of the speech refers to a priest on his throne (6:13)” (p. 396), and, again, the ‘harmony between the two’ then meant the priest and his throne or between his two roles (p. 397). Boda cites many examples of scholars arguing this, and dismisses these views only in respect to its original historical meaning, on which I agree (since I was never talking about its “original” meaning).
• In Behold Your King: The Hope For the House of David in the Book of Zechariah (T&T Clark, 2009), Anthony Robert Petterson concludes regarding the ‘shoot’ in Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12 that “the text now seems to identify Joshua as the Shoot” so “it is a logical supposition the names were switched” and “the context further supports this,” e.g. a crowning is unexpected for a priest, etc. (p. 101).
• Petterson cites Carroll Stuhlmueller, Rebuilding with Hope: A Commentary on the Books of Haggai and Zechariah, from the International Theological Commentary (Eerdmans, 1988), p. 79, as concurring on this point.
• Harry Orlinsky and Norman Snaith, in Studies on the Second Part of the Book of Isaiah (Brill, 1967), conclude that “the natural meaning of the Hebrew is that Joshua is the Branch,” based on “my servant” of Zech. 3:8, also there called the Branch (Anatolê in Greek) and “they are of the opinion” that in the received text of Zech. 6 “apparently Joshua is the Branch,” because “the whole section has evidently been interpreted later differently from what was originally intended” given the many variants across the Hebrew and Greek (pp. 246–47).
• Cameron Mackay, in “Zechariah in Relation to Ezekiel 40–48,” Evangelical Quarterly 40 (1968), argues that “in Zech. 6:9-15 the symbolic investiture of Joshua-Jesus as the Branch is completed with crowns…displaying the royal role of one who ‘shall sit and rule . . . a priest upon his throne’,” asserting “the kingly and priestly character of Messiah, as it is asserted in Ps. 110:4,” arguing that the text might have originally had Zerubbabel here, “the name being changed when it became evident that the actual head of the nation was the high priest” (p. 208).
• Margaret Barker says that developmental story is pretty much the dominant view in her field, in “The Two Figures in Zechariah,” Heythrop Journal 18 (1977), pp. 38–46, where she gives detailed arguments for it possibly even being the original reading (“the title the ‘Branch’, given apparently to Joshua” in the first place, pp. 41–42).

Some of these scholars also observe that in the commentary of Didymus the Blind it is simply taken for granted that Zechariah 6:12 names the “Jesus” there the Anatolê (and thus, of course, he imagines it anticipated Christianity). Notably, Didymus comes to this conclusion from linking this passage to Jeremiah 23:5–6, which links the Branch to Jehozedak, not Zerubbabel—hence explaining (to Didymus’s satisfaction) why the figure named in Zech. 6:12 is Jesus “son of Jehozedak.” We can dismiss that as Christian exegesis. But it still demonstrates how easy it was to read that verse this way, and thus how easy it would have been to find in that verse a key passage for the original pesher foundational to Christianity, exactly as I argue in Element 6. That numerous modern experts agree, on entirely objective evidence as well, only seals the point.

So my conclusion, the one Davis slanders as “incompetent,” is in fact so mainstream that it has passed peer review no less than twelve times now. And that’s just as far as I found in a day’s work at a library. There are no doubt countless more examples I could add. But how many times do we need it to pass peer review before Davis will admit the truth? This is a competent conclusion of bona fide experts, many of whom more expert and prestigious than he and I put together. So this is not me “being incompetent.” It’s him being incompetent. I’m repeating a conclusion so well established in the field that (as we saw) it can even be stated without argument, and is argued so convincingly across a broad range of Zechariah scholarship as to leave no other conclusion likely. Davis then acts like an incompetent amateur and fails to check the literature before asserting an argument that has already been refuted by countless of his superiors.

As another sign of his incompetence (let’s charitably assume), Davis also tries to argue that no one can read “rising” out of Anatolê because it merely translates “shoot,” but shoot is figurative for rising (“spring up from below”), and this was obvious to ancient readers (see comments below for a confirming study), especially any who were looking for a pesher reading of this text, particularly an apocalypticist scouting for inspiration or metaphors for a resurrection (indeed Paul even uses a seedling metaphor to explain resurrection). Davis acts like I said this was what the authors of the Bible meant. Um. No. I very clearly articulate that I am speaking of a hypothetical Christian looking for a hidden pesher in this text (OHJ, p. 83). As shown across the last two articles and this, Davis routinely reads my work in bad faith, and falsely reports my arguments, then rebuts the fake arguments he invented rather than the actual ones I made. But unlike Davis, I actually have evidence for my (actual) hypothesis. Like, say…

What Philo Says

It gets worse for Kipp when we go and look at the argument he declares he will ignore. Only incompetent scholars declare they will ignore arguments they purport to be rebutting. And the reason that is incompetent will now become clear with this very example. The argument I present in OHJ for Philo reading Zechariah as I suggest is an argument to a probability (so possibility arguments can’t rebut it), and it is quite strong. Any contrary interpretation requires assuming not only several very improbable coincidences that mine does not (rendering any other interpretation than mine very improbable: see The Difference Between a Historian and an Apologist), but it also requires going against a wide variety of mainstream peer-reviewed scholarship (as we just saw). Is that likely to be the correct position do you think? Or is mine? You do the math.

Philo interprets Zechariah 6:12 as naming what he elsewhere calls the “angel of many names,” the “firstborn” Son of God, and God’s celestial “high priest,” Anatolê. And his reasoning is that God made this angel to “rise up” (anatelei, the verb form of Anatolê) to rule and create the universe (OHJ, p. 203; cf. 200–05). This same pun is in Zechariah, in both the Greek and the Hebrew. And in Philo’s imagination it meant “rise up” to be God’s own Son and High Priest, his primary agent of creation. And indeed the Zechariah passage mentions the Anatolê building “God’s house,” and identifies only one person there as a high priest and “Son of the Righteous God,” Jesus ben Jehozedak. It’s improbable Philo just “accidentally” identified the Anatolê with God’s Son and High Priest and “didn’t notice” the God’s Son and High Priest in that verse is named Jesus. And then given what all the experts I cited above said about the interpretation of this verse in Philo’s day, as most likely indeed calling Jesus there the Anatolê, there is no case left to deny it. Kipp never mentions this. He has no pertinent rebuttal.

Which gets us to that verbal argument. That early Christians could have seen an allusion to resurrection through the cognate sense of “rising” / “springing forth” is supported by Philo himself (Confusion of Tongues 62–63), who repeats the pun in Zechariah when he explains why he is identifying the Anatolê with this angel, that God made his Son to “rise up” (meaning, from nowhere: he is literally the firstborn of all creation) to rule and create the universe. So Philo himself was well aware of the figurative meaning of “shoot/rising” as rising up. It would indeed be easy for a pesherist to find in this a reference to resurrection. Again, I do not, and am not here, saying they did. I am saying it would have been easy to. Hypothesis, not fact. Plausibility, not certainty. Modal argumentation. Logic. Learn it. Live it.

And Kipp Davis Is a Liar

Alas, not everything can be excused as gross incompetence. As a parting shot, Kipp falsely claims I cite sources that don’t relate to what I claim. I don’t. Which is why he gives no actual examples. Instead, he lies. Since he couldn’t find a real example, he had to invent one. And he’s so lazy, I guess, that one is all he could be bothered with inventing, apparently. Evidently, again, Kipp fails at logic by not understanding that a generalization requires more than one example. And that “example”? Davis goes on about his claim that I cited “Martin Abegg” as supporting a dying-messiah reading of 11Q13. I do not. Nowhere in the entirety of my book do I cite Abegg for such a claim. Kipp is lying.

I cite Abegg only twice in OHJ, and both times only at the end of long footnotes—so Kipp had to dig past dozens of other citations to find any reference I made to Abegg, demonstrating how desperate he was to find something to complain about. What claims do I actually cite Abegg for? In the midst of note 36 on page 76 I say “for the scroll’s text, translation and notes, see…” and I list a bunch of standard discussions of the scroll and its reference to Daniel, representing a wide range of debate. Which is what a scholar is supposed to do. Then at the end of that long string of studies I add “see also” and then I cite Abegg—and a debate between Guglielmo and Bock, making clear this appendix contains examples of debate over the material. At no point do I say these citations relate to the dying messiah interpretation. They only establish exactly what I said: “for the scroll’s text, translation and notes,” on which “see also.” That’s it. I provide a bibliography on the basics of the scroll, and the debates surrounding it. Like a scholar is supposed to do. Yet Kipp complains—by lying about what Abegg is doing in this list.

I also outright say, in the body of the text, that “Not all scholars have recognized” what I argue regarding “11Q13 or conceded it,” so where do you think the scholars I thus mention are cited? Three guesses. So here Davis is falsely accusing me of not mentioning or citing scholars who disagree with me, when in fact I do both; and in the most audacious move, Davis then falsely claims I cited Abegg for the opposite reason. Which I didn’t. Think about this. Seriously. I am being simultaneously attacked as incompetent because “You didn’t mention any scholars who disagree with you” and “You cited a scholar who disagreed with you.” In a section where I explicitly say there are scholars who disagree with me. I just cannot chalk this up to massive (truly, gobsmackingly, massive) incompetence. Davis had to consciously bypass all the other relevant sources in this note, and consciously ignore that I mentioned there are scholars who disagree with me, simply to cherry pick one of those, and then dishonestly accuse me of not knowing what he said. It’s thus clear Davis had to know he did this. Which is lying. And he told this lie to falsely accuse me of professional incompetence. Which is slander. Both of which are immoral.

I cite Abegg only one other time, in note 34 on pp. 75–76, at the end of a long list of studies discussing the “two messiah” question at Qumran. And there I cite Abegg for exactly the point Kipp makes, demonstrating Kipp isn’t even reading my notes. In the middle of that note I pivot to a qualification: “But it’s debated whether these are actually two messiahs, or what kind of messiahs they are: see …” And I list some discussions. Then I pivot to another qualification (and this is still all just in the footnote, mind you; none of this is in the main text): “It’s also debated whether one of the Qumran fragments [i.e. 4Q285] says one of these messiahs ‘will be pierced’ and killed, or whether he will pierce and kill someone else, and I consider that question presently unresolvable (the manuscript is too damaged to tell). See …” and then I list some studies on that point, at the end of which I close with “as well as the discussion and scholarship cited in Martin Abegg.”

In other words, I cite Abegg here for the discussion of this question about 4Q285, not for any specific position (that I take or anyone does); indeed I outright say I take no position for me to be citing him for! And yet in his third video, Davis lies about this, too: across minutes 35 and 36 Davis claims I am incompetent for citing Abegg because he “challenges” the claim that 4Q285 describes a dying messiah—when in fact I cited Abegg for indeed challenging that claim, thereby explaining why I didn’t adopt it! So Davis accuses me of being incompetent for doing the very thing Davis insists would be competent: correctly citing Abegg against the use of 4Q285 as evidence for a dying messiah! Seriously. Davis really did that.

So in both cases regarding Abegg, Kipp Davis fabricated a claim that doesn’t exist in my book. And then he used that single fabrication as “evidence” I “generally” cite things that don’t relate to what I cite them for (when in fact I cited them for the very things he says I should have). That’s slander. And you still trust this guy?

That Davis couldn’t find a real example further proves he’s lying—because it means he found none to cite, and thus he had no examples on which to base his generalization. That he could then only be bothered to invent one proves he’s either lazy or sucks at logic. But what really is the kicker here is that to get to Abegg, he had to waltz right past my first two references regarding reading Daniel 9:25 in 11Q13 (which Davis doesn’t even dispute): Alex Jassen (who provides general background) and John Bergsma—who argues exactly what I do in the rest of the paragraph: that 11Q13’s reference to Daniel 9:25 entails a recognition of a dying messiah concept (look up “Bergsma” in yesterday’s article; yep, that). Davis also engages equivocation fallacies here (forgetting my definition of “messiah” and why it is relevant, as I discussed the first time). But it’s most telling that he didn’t tell you my “incompetent” argument is John Bergsma’s. Who is not incompetent.

You can interpret this last lie in two possible ways. Either Davis acted like a responsible scholar and actually checked my references (rather than ignoring all of them until he could cherry pick a side-reference to Abegg for his overall lie), in which case he knew I was merely summarizing Bergsma’s argument and deliberately concealed this information from his viewers (a lie of omission), and then lied to them by claiming no one I cited supported my argument (a lie of commission). Or Davis didn’t check these sources, and thus didn’t know he was attacking Bergsma and calling him incompetent (as well as many other scholars besides; over thirty support my Element 5 overall, and several support specifically my proposal regarding 11Q13, per yesterday’s article), which would mean he both lied to his viewers by claiming he checked my sources (so as to know they didn’t support me as he averred) and incompetently didn’t check any of these sources!

Either way, Davis has established himself now to be profoundly unreliable. He has repeatedly betrayed both fundamental rules of scholarship I outlined above, confirming he has chosen instead to be a pseudoscholar. It is clear now that you cannot trust him to tell the truth about me, my arguments, the evidence, or the peer reviewed literature of our field. I suggest you stop listening to him altogether. Find someone trustworthy to patronize instead.

Conclusion

So here we are. With respect to Zechariah, Davis incompetently ignores all the arguments and scholarship against him, and then accuses me of being incompetent for maintaining a position that in fact he is incompetent for rejecting, given that that position is mainstream across the literature, and well argued. Once again, he didn’t check. Oops. His other slanderous side-points, constructed out of lies and misrepresentations, only confirm how unreliable he actually is. In every case, he never addresses my actual arguments, but invents arguments I didn’t make and rebuts them instead. But it’s his “not checking the scholarship” that gets him into the most catastrophic trouble.

For example, Kipp Davis’s survey of possible readings of a Dead Sea Scroll on Daniel, 4Q246 (relating to a mere two sentences in my Element 7 on p. 86) is irrelevant to what I argued for it: all I said is that there is one possible way to read this that could have influenced Christianity. I did not say we knew this to be the case. It’s a modal argument, not an argument to fact. But I already took Davis to task before for his ineptitude with logic. So instead, once again, I will let another far more qualified scholar speak to Kipp here: his own dissertation advisor, George Brooke, who makes the very same argument regarding 4Q246 that I do, in “Aramaic Traditions from the Qumran Caves, and the Palestinian Sources for Part of Luke’s Special Material,” Vision, Narrative, and Wisdom in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran, eds. Mette Bundvad and Kasper Siegesmund (Brill, 2017), pp. 203–20 (vide pp. 206–09).

As Judge Dredd said to Ma-Ma, “Yeah.”