In a world somewhere beyond our own, a figure is standing on a rocky plateau in the middle of a desert. No, not standing, exactly. Rather, this figure is rotating furiously, his arms extended from his body so that from the air he seems to resemble a propellor gone off its base. This being's name is Mattchu, and he is dizzy.
As he stops spinning for a breath of air, another figure climbs over the edge of the platform, a figure that resembles a large, female white rabbit with flowing blond hair. She pauses at the top as she notes who she sees. Then she climbs atop the platform, walks up behind Mattchu, and taps him on the shoulder.
MATTCHU: AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
SHEILA: YOU again? I had a report at the station about some lunatic dancing up here on the plateau. Are you on drugs? Loftuscite, maybe?
MATTCHU: YOU! I HATES you! Gets out of here! Scrams, rabbit!
At this, Mattchu advances with his fists upraised. Sheila does nothing. She is three times taller than he is, and, though he doesn't know it, at least twelve times stronger. She simply stares. As he comes within a foot of her, he starts to realize the difference in size and likely difference in strength. For a moment he stares open-mouthed. Then Sheila advances and looks him straight in the eye, one eyebrow raised.
SHEILA: Sit down.
Mattchu complies, his posterior hitting the plateau floor with a loud CLUMPH. His eyes and mouth remain wide open. Sheila begins to pace, then extracts some papers from a carrying bag. She holds them up for Mattchu to see.
SHEILA: Just as well. I was looking for you anyway. What the heck (she laughs) is this?
MATTCHU (grins): Ha ha! Holdingses King of Spins, Parts 1!
SHEILA: Right. We hateses Holdingses, right?
(Mattchu nods vigorously. There is an odd sound like a BB rattling.)
SHEILA: Well, dear, you need to get yourself an editor to manage some of these rants. You're worse than Farrell Till for the first few paragraphs, for pity's sake. It's almost too paranoid to read, but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
MATTCHU: Don't answer bunnies' stupid questionses.
SHEILA: Would you rather I replay Lee Strobel's recommendation of the Tekton site?
(Mattchu blanches. His already-pale face takes on the color of chalk.)
MATTCHU: NO! NO! I ANSWERS QUESTIONSES! ANYTHING BUT THATS!!!!
SHEILA: Okey-dokey. (Sheila holds up the paper and reads thoughtfully.) You know, dear, you certainly HAVE learned from Robert Price. You're as adept as he is at countering what you allege is "spin" with you own "spin". If mastery of hypocrisy was your goal, you've certainly achieved that well.
Mattchu growls, but says nothing.
SHEILA: Like it or not, dear, Mr. Holding every bit of the way in his research starts out with the critical-historical method and honestly searches history for whatever facts can be established and seeks what is the best explanation of those facts. What YOU do is claim that anyone that doesn't reach the conclusion you WANT to be true isn't being "critical". It's a game your type plays, staking the high ground and then acting like king of the hill. Am I right?
At this, Mattchu screams and charges Sheila. He slams into her legs below the knee with a loud SMACK. He bounces backwards several feet, moaning, onto his back. Sheila has not stopped reading. She looks up a moment later.
SHEILA: Did you say something, sweetie?
Mattchu moans, but otherwise does not answer.
SHEILA: Really, now, this is simply SO childish, dear. You realize that we could just rewrite this and have it say:
Atheist apologetics, on the other hand, starts with the presumption that the Bible is errant and not allowed to be anything but a human product and therefore scavenger hunts history, science, other academic disciplines, looking for whatever facts support whatever conclusion they start with and endlessly rationalize away or even deny any facts that contradict the presumption of inerrancy. Atheist apologists, whose lives are devoted to this, cease to be intellectually honest and objective people, and become spin-doctors.
And so on. Why doesn't this fit you to a T? It's what you did as a Christian, wasn't it? So why should we think the leopard -- excuse me, gollum -- has changed its spots?
MATTCHU: Yous has hads some religious experience and looks for facts to back it up!
SHEILA (shaking head): No, dear. I have not. Neither has Holding. You're describing YOUR former life and maybe that of other people, but not any of us. Mr. Holding doesn't care about "religious experience" or mysticism or any of that crap. He's never had a "religious experience". He doesn't even know exactly what date he could have begun to call himself a Christian. All this about how apologists are not "objective" is just you trying to stake the intellectual high ground before you earn it with argument. It doesn't work that way -- except when you're preaching to the choir. And you know what THAT is all about, don't you?
MATTCHU: BAH! Holdingses not use reason! With reasonsses, one is intellectual free to draw whatever conclusions one feels is intellectually honest, and not just whatever conclusions are best consistent with inerrancy.
SHEILA: Now THAT is a remarkably ironic thing to say in an article about Holding, dearie. He holds to a number of unpopular positions within Christianity: He accepts preterism; he dispenses with TULIP; he despises the Rick Warren and emergent church types, and you have the nerve to imply that he is not "intellectually free to draw whatever conclusions he feels are honest"? In saying this, aren't you really saying, he hasn't drawn the conclusions YOU have, so he must be dishonest?
MATTCHU: BAH! He STILL defendses inerrancy!
SHEILA: Your point being what?
MATTCHU: So he believses there is simply no such thing as an actual errancy in the Bible!
SHEILA: I see. And did he come to that conclusion before or after he looked at the evidence?
MATTCHU: DUH! Beforeses, obvioussssly!
SHEILA: Why obvious?
MATTCHU: Becaussse! If he hadn't, Holdingses would conclude that........
There is a pause as a look of horror creeps across Mattchu's face.
SHEILA: So to sum it up, if Mr. Holding had come to YOUR conclusion, only then would he be honest. Is that right?
MATTCHU: ........uuuuRRRRRRRaaahhhhh.......
SHEILA: Has he ever said anywhere that atheists are what they are because they love to sin and have too much pride to admit it?
MATTCHU (meekly): Uh........no....
SHEILA: What HAS he said?
MATTCHU (growls): He says atheists is SSSSSTUPID!
SHEILA: And is he right?
MATTCHU (shouts): NO!!!
SHEILA (shrugs): We'll see about that. For now the bottom line is all the claptrap about how you supposedly use reason in a "magesterial" way is obviously its own spin. Given how unstable you are, and have been in the past -- how you've said how much you wished Christianity were not true, and how much it used to depress you to think it was -- we have every reason to think that you've got your own version of spin to push. I mean, good heavens, was it not you who said:
I have already spoken elsewhere what the personal consequences for me would be if I came to conclude the Christian gospel was valid: I would take my own life; I would see no reason to delay the inevitability of Hell.
You call yourself rational after a statement like that? And the fact that you spend paragraph upon paragraph whining about "spin" from Mr. Holding before you get to so much as one argument supports this. If you have such a good answer, dearie, why not put it on the front burner for us, level one, and forget all that?
MATTCHU: Grrrar! Holdingses SPINS!
SHEILA: No, dear. THIS is a spin.
(Sheila takes Mattchu by the arms and spins him. He twirls seven times and then drops to the ground.)
MATTCHU (dizzily): Gahhhhh....Holdingses doesn't offer any criteria for distinguishing between legitimate plausibility scenarios and illegitimate scenarios.
SHEILA: Uhhhh....yeah. Like that's HIS job? Why?
MATTCHU: ........uuuuRRRRAhhhhh......
SHEILA: Dearie, he doesn't need to do that. The demonstration of plausibility is inherent in the explanations themselves, at least where any critically thinking person is concerned. Is that maybe why you think Mr. Holding needs to hold everyone's hand? Is it maybe some guilt trip on your part, that you feel as though you were led irresponsibly down a path as a former Christian and want to blame someone else for it?
MATTCHU: OKAY! SSSSSO I MADE MISSSTAKES! I'S SORRY! ISSSSS THAT OKAY????
SHEILA: No, it is not okay. You're making a fool of yourself publicly airing your burdens. You're using Mr. Holding to vent your frustrations. You can't hurt him, dear; you're too self-contradictory and too careless to harm anyone but yourself, and that's all you're doing. Now let's make this clear: I have no idea whether you're on a guilt trip, but you can see it is every bit as easy to create one for you. And does that advance any argument at all?
MATTCHU: Holdingses INSULTS people! That no advancessss arrgument!
SHEILA: He wouldn't say it did and never has.
MATTCHU: Uhhhhhhhh????
SHEILA: So it boils down to this, doesn't it? Once again, you're being a hypocrite. You rant about Mr. Holding using ad hominem, then do the same thing, in essence, by piling on rants about spin. At least Robert Price is consistent, unlike you -- he has NEVER complained about Mr. Holding's use of satire.
MATTCHU: Gaaaaaahh....huuuuh....fart....
SHEILA: See here though: Even YOU had to admit Mr. Holding was right about some legitimate and viable explanations for alleged errancies in the Bible. Correct?
MATTCHU (stares, then turns away): Grrrrrr......yessss....Lukes 14:26. He wassss right about that.
SHEILA: And?
MATTCHU (head swaying, gnaws on foot a moment, then answers): Grrrr...2 Samuel 24:24 and 1st Chronicles 21:25. Seeeemssss okay.
SHEILA: I should think so, dear. He GOT that explanation -- which he uses in other venues also -- from a classical scholar who, though a Christian, is not an inerrantist. And you also gave him credit on Matthew 12:40. So that's three examples. Now let me ask you some questions....
MATTCHU (holding head in hands) Noooooooo........hatessssss quessstions.
SHEILA: Do you admit that Mr. Holding has in these answers followed critical history procedure, as you defined it?
MATTCHU (sighs): He gotssss a right anssswer, anywayssss. I guesses.
SHEILA: Did he offer a way to distinguish between legitimate plausibility and an illegitimate scenario in either of those answers?
MATTCHU: Uhhhhhhhhrrrarrrrr...........
SHEILA: I see. So as long as he agrees with you, he doesn't have to do that?
MATTCHU: LOOK! HOLDINGSES INTELLECTUALLY DISSHONEST! I GIVESSS EXAMPLES! READ THOSE, SSSSTUPID BUNNY!
SHEILA (shrugs): I will in a moment, dear, in the order you wrote. It remains that you're being inconsistent again. Moreover, here's something you do NOT consider. You say Mr. Holding starts with the conclusion he wants to prove, yes?
MATTCHU: YEESSSS!!
SHEILA: Do you think he did that when he answered those three issues? Do you think he started with the conclusion that there could be no error in those three examples?
MATTCHU: HA! I'll betssss he did!
SHEILA: But he still came up with answers that were perfectly sound, as far as you can see?
MATTCHU: Yessss, he ----
(Once again, a look of horror spreads over Mattchu's face. He starts jumping up and down, holding his head, and screaming.)
MATTCHU: NOOOOOOOOOO!! NOOOOOOOOOOO! I HASSSS TO BE RIGHT! HAS TO BE! I'S RATIONAL!
SHEILA: No, dear, you are NOT rational. You're inflamed with hatred for Mr. Holding and others you see as standing in your way. That's obvious. But (Sheila stretches langorously) we won't make any further issue of that. Unlike you, we won't spend pages psychoanalyzing you repeatedly, saying nothing new each time. We'll go straight to these alleged "ridiculous explanations" where you say Mr. Holding was dishonest, or whatever. I have to say that from the looks of things, you had to do a "scavenger hunt" yourself to find these problems. But go on -- present your case. I'll follow along on the paper.
Mattchu grumbles a bit under his breath, then begins.
MATTCHU: I ssssshowsss you! [O]ne of the best discrepancies in the Bible is with regards to the story of where the Holy Family went after Jesus was born. Holdingses sayssss:
Although not explicitly stated, the implication here is: This is the first time the family has ever been to Nazareth. Therefore, they did not live there before; therefore, Matthew and Luke disagree. But do they?
In fact, we see tension, but not outright contradiction, and this is easily explicable in terms of the evangelists' respective sources. Luke and the family sources would of course have all of the records straight. But Matthew's magi? They would find the child in Bethlehem; they would inquire of the family, "Was he born here in Bethlehem?" - and they of course would answer yes! Enough said - and the fact that the family actually lived in Nazareth under normal circumstances would go by the wayside (or, if nothing else, avoided as a topic of conversation to keep from spilling the beans to a jealous Herod). So Matthew had this before him: His source told him that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; but he knew Jesus and his family were from Nazareth. How did they happen to get to Nazareth, then? From here, the answer depends on where you stand. Inerrantists of course may maintain that Matthew was inspirationally informed of Joseph's dreams to stay away from Judea and get back home; it is also possible that this was another case where Jesus informed the disciples for the sake of the prophecy-fulfillment paradigm. Those more skeptical may say that Matt simply used a typical OT dream motif. Perhaps both are true. The bottom line is that since Matt does not explicitly say that the family did not come from Nazareth, we do not have a case of contradiction at all - but a quite understandable tension that is easily resolved critically.
I begsssss to differ! The problem is that Luke has the family living in Nazareth before coming to Bethlehem and Matthew has the family living in Bethlehem and only later moving to Nazareth for the first time. The problem is that in Matthew's account, one finds the following written: 19But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." 21And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: "He shall be called a Nazarene.
The phrase "went and lived" is highlighted in bold here because it is damaging to Holding's attempts at reconciliation. When Matthew uses it, Matthew does so with the intent of taking up residence in a place for the first time. The only other place Matthew uses it is in chapter 4, verse 13, where the following may be read:
12Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled..
Anyone reading this will know that Matthew is using the phrase "went and lived" in the sense of taking up residency for the first time. No one reading this would believe that Jesus originally lived in Capernaum, went to be baptized, tempted, and then went to Nazareth and then left Nazareth to return to his home in Capernaum. No, it reads that Jesus lived in Nazareth of Galilee the whole time until he heard that John the Baptist was arrested and then returned to Galilee and left Nazareth to take up residency in Capernaum. In Matthew 2: 23, then the phrase "went and lived" is understood meaning that Joseph and the Holy Family were taking up residency in Nazareth for the first time!
(Mattchu slaps the ground and smiles with a gleam of satisfaction.) There you goessss, sssstpid rabbit! How do you like THEM applesssess??? Huh????
SHEILA: They're rotten.
MATTCHU: WHAT! My ansssswer issss perfect! I --
SHEILA: No, dear, it's strained to the breaking point. You took a false step. You say the phrase "went and lived" when Matthew uses it, is used with the intent of saying someone is taking up residence in a place for the first time. Correct?
MATTCHU! Yesssss!
SHEILA: Where in "went and lived" is there any sort of temporal marker?
MATTCHU: Huuuuhhhh?
SHEILA: Is it in the "went," the "and," or the "lived"? Which of those words carries the freight of living in a place for the first time?
MATTCHU: It'ssss clear! SSSame way in Matthew 4:13!
SHEILA: No, dear, you can't do that. The property of moving to a place for the first time does occur in Matt. 4:13, true, but you need to show that there's a linguistic connection between the phrase "went and lived" and moving to a place for the first time. As it is, with only two examples -- one of which is the one you're trying to prove a point about -- that's not good enough. Talk about hypocrisy, dear; YOU failed your own tests. I'll show you: What phrase does Matthew use, then, to show that people moved BACK to a place they once lived in, if "went and lived" is his exclusive phrase for people moving to a place for the first time?
MATTCHU: .....uuuuuuRRRRRRRRRRuuuuMmmmmmmmmmm....
SHEILA: Does he have a special phrase for someone moving to a place for the third or fourth time? Or maybe Koine Greek does?
MATTCHU: OKAY! OKAY! SSSSO I DIDN'T PROVES IT ALL THE WAY! ISSSSS THAT OKAY????
SHEILA (shrugs): It's your blog, dear. You can defecate in it all you want.
MATTCHU: Grah! You wouldn'tssss believe that Jesus originally lived in Capernaum, went to be baptized, tempted, and then went to Nazareth and then left Nazareth to return to his home in Capernaum.
SHEILA: I wouldn't say he didn't on the basis of "went and lived" either, dear. Anyway, that's not any sort of parallel to the birth narratives. Remember Holding's entire premise: Matthew writes as he does because his sources are the magi. He has no information at all on Jesus' early living arrangements outside of what the order of the magi tell him. There's no issue of lack of information like that where Matthew 4:13 is concerned. That was truly pathetic, dear, a real boneheader of a leap in both logic and use of data.
MATTCHU (spits): Psssssssss! Yeah, wells, Holdingses created an interesting discrepancy between what he wrote in his piece on the harmonization of the birth narratives and what he wrote in an article on whether God dwells in temples or not. Here it is:
"Hab. 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear."
"The last cite tells us that the word here simply means "a place where they are" with no connotations of setting up housekeeping (versus the NT word katoikeo, which is used in verses like this: "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth". There is another Hebrew word for this, yashab.) Correspondingly this would simply refer to a place where a deity could make contact and communicate its will; for the pagans that would have been an image of some sort, but for Yahweh that would be the Temple in Jerusalem."
This is interesting. So Mr. Holding believes that the Greek word katiokeo is a word that has "connotations of setting up housekeeping"? So Holding, then, agrees that the verse in Matthew 2:23, then is a case of moving to Nazareth and taking up residency? Then Mr. Holding has pinned himself into a difficult corner because he cannot agree that Matthew 2:23 denotes taking up residency without admitting that a contradiction really does exist! Yet, because of his rather staunch belief in biblical inerrancy, Mr. Holding is caught in a tight spot and he will not be able to wiggle his way out!
(Mattchu grins, even wider this time. He starts dancing around and clapping, as spittle flies from his mouth. Sheila simply watches, looks at the paper, and sighs.)
SHEILA: Um...excuse me...
MATTCHU: La la la la la la la la! Holdingses trapped withouts a way out! La laaaa laaa laaaa...
SHEILA: EXCUSE ME! (Sheila stamps her large rabbit's foot, and Mattchu trips and falls flat on his face. As he raises himself to his knees, Sheila goes on.) I need to ask you a question. If the holy family moved back to Nazareth again after an extended period, as Mr. Holding argues, why is the use of katiokeo not appropriate?
MATTCHU (raises finger): Becausssssse! It -- (He stops. His mouth is still open. He scratches his head.)
SHEILA: I thought so. You did it again, really; you loaded semantic freight on to a word without proving that it held that freight in the first place. If katiokeo isn't the word Matthew would use if Mr. Holding were right, what word WOULD he use? You need to show that it wouldn't be used for a return to a former place of residence -- especially after such a long period. Why wouldn't the holy family set up housekeeping in Nazareth upon a return? Dear, Mr. Holding himself has moved many times in his life, including returns -- twice -- to cities he once lived in at a prior time. I assure you that "setting up housekeeping" was done both times. No doubt that involved different things in the first century, but the point remains the same, that you're not anywhere near proving anything.
MATTCHU: ..........uuuuuurrrAaaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Can't be!
SHEILA: You can work on it and get back to us later....good luck. How about number two? You even accuse Mr. Holding of dishonesty on this one, so let's hear it. You're actually defending Farrell Till here, which is funny; how about you defend Acharya S next?
MATTCHU (growls): I defendssss whoever kissssesss my....
SHEILA: Too much information, please. Now I know this is the bit about the men with David. So give us the "news" here.
MATTCHU: GRAH! Holdingses either did not read the passage from 1st Samuel 21: 1-6 carefully or he flat out lied about what was written. Here is the actual passage:
"David came to Nob to the priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech came trembling to meet David, and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" David said to the priest Ahimelech, "The king has charged me with a matter, and said to me, `No one must know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.' I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here." The priest answered David, "I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread--provided that the young men have kept themselves from women." David answered the priest, "Indeed women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition; the vessels of the young men are holy even when it is a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?" So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before Yahweh, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away (1 Samuel 21:1-6).
In this passage, Ahimelech says "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" How the hell could Mr. Holding say "No formal contradiction exists, because the OT does not specifically say that there were no men with David?" when Ahimelech asks David why he was alone and that there was no one with him?" A formal contradiction exists here because Ahimelech acknowledges that David is alone and that there is no one with him. Ahimelech literally and verbally acknowledges that David is alone and that there is no one with him. Mr. Holding --
SHEILA: Stop right there.
MATTCHU: WHAT????
SHEILA: Mattchu, that has to be one of the stupidest answers I've ever seen come from an atheist. You say Ahimelech's words mean David was alone?
MATTCHU: YESSSSS!
SHEILA: If that's the case, then why aren't David's own words -- "I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place" -- an answer to Ahimelech showing that he DID have men with him, or soon would? I think you're getting confused here, dear. No one -- not even Mr. Holding -- says that David had men with him when he went to visit Ahimelech, as in, right there in the same room. The argument is that other men were part of his travel retinue, and that they were waiting for him and went with him on his journey.
MATTCHU: NO!!! David ate the showbread and gave some to those who were with him. This word-phrasing is continuous with David being needy and hungry as well as those who were with him which is strongly implying that Jesus, according to this passage, believed that men were with David throughout the episode.
SHEILA: Dearie, that's nonsense and you know it. That's just a contrived explanation you're creating to save your bacon from an embarrassing reading. In fact the very translations you use all defy you -- they say he entered the house of God, not THEY entered. They do not say "they" were in the house of God with them when he gave them the bread.
How about you answer all of Holding's article on that? For example, if David didn't have men as part of his travel retinue, why did he ask for and take five times the bread he would need for such a short journey? It wouldn't stay good lomg enough for just him to use, you know; they didn't have plastic baggies back then, in case you forgot. Also, who sent word back as to what cave David was hiding in? You know that Till tried to get out of that by inventing all kinds of people not mentioned in the narrative, so what makes his answer better?
MATTCHU: OKAY! FINE! I MESSSSSED UP AGAIN! I'M SSSSSORRY! ISSSSS THAT OKAY?????
SHEILA: No, it isn't, actually. You're whining about Holding's "honesty" and "competency" and yet you can't even get the argument right. And you have a lot of nerve to whine about competency in reading when you confused Nebuchadnezzar for Belshazzar as you did.
MATTCHU: GRRRRARRR! I ssssshowsss you! There'sssss one MORE mistake by Holdingses!
SHEILA: Don't bother.
MATTCHU: Huh???
SHEILA: Dearie, you weren't on TWeb yet, but Till played that "idou factor" there also, and it bombed. It happened that Jaltus was on the scene -- you know who Jaltus is, don't you?
MATTCHU: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....oh.
SHEILA: I see you do indeed. Well, you need to read what Jaltus said in a thread here. Till went down in flames like a Sopwith Camel on that one. Jaltus' own answer is not quite the same as Holding's, but Mr. Holding will take either one. Both have their virtues.
MATTCHU: Uhhhh....um....
SHEILA: It doesn't matter either way, dear. If Mr. Holding is arguing for a dischronologized narrative, then the presence of kai idou as a temporal marker doesn't negate that. It wouldn't be able to be called "dischronologized" if it weren't reporting events out of the order that they seem to be based on the language. Such a narrative purposely reports events out of order. You really need to pay closer attention and make sure you understand the argument before you criticize it. Here's a hint...Till isn't as reliable source for such things. You can see how he got his chops busted on that thread by Jaltus and the others there.
MATTCHU: But but but! But Holdingses misreported Tillses argument! He sayssss there is no logical connection at all between the use of idou and whether or not what follows it is dischronologized. It means no more and no less that attention was to be brought to what followed, period. That was not Till's argument! Till argued that when idou is coupled with the Greek word kai as in Kai Idou, it means that what preceded this word phrase came before what came after this word phrase.
SHEILA: Mattchu, that's the same thing in different words. Till is arguing that kai idou always indicates a temporal order. Mr. Holding is saying that that is not the case, and that there is no logical connection between the presence of the phrase and a negation of dischronologized narrative. Detection of dechornologized narrative is dependent on logical premisses, not linguistic ones. Mr. Holding didn't "evade" other instances of kai idou because those are not the issue. He expects kai idou would be used even if an event is reported in a different order than when it actually happened, because essentially, the writer purposely rewrites the chronology. Till and you both are addressing a red herring.
MATTCHU: WHA! SPUT! PHAH! GREK!
SHEILA: Please try to pay attention next time, dear.
(At this, Mattchu again begins spinning violently. His eyes are covered by his hands. He spins and spins and heads for the edge of the plateau, unawares.)
SHEILA: Say, um....
(It is too late. Mattchu spins off the edge of the plateau, screaming. In short order there is a loud THUMP, then two more.)
SHEILA: Well, I guess he'll be back. He only bounced twice.
