It’s no surprise that Jim West has responded on his own blog to the challenge I put forth earlier tonight. If you don’t know the background, please read that post first. Otherwise, you’ll be walking into the middle of a confrontation unaware of its context. To recap very briefly: (1) Michael Westmoreland-White posted a snarky but valid question on Pat McCullough’s blog. Michael asked, very simply, “When is the last time any of us have seen Jim actually make a careful exegetical argument?” The specific background to Michael’s question was Jim’s advocacy of “cessationism,” which usually comes in the form of harsh criticisms of “charismatics” or “Pentecostals,” unaccompanied by exegetical argumentation. (2) Jim posted a response on his own blog, in which he complained that Michael “hasn’t bothered to read any of my exegetical work” and that “rather than spend the money to buy a book and read careful exegetical work, [Michael] would rather pretend to have read everything I’ve written and then pass his all knowing, all seeing judgment against and upon it.” (3) Being a fool, I rushed in where angels fear to tread, and dared to actually (a) agree that Michael’s question was valid, (b) review every item on Jim’s CV looking for evidence of “careful exegetical work” on cessationism (or of any kind, for that matter), and (c) challenge Jim to either point us to that published exegetical work on cessationism or start supporting his broadsides in actual argumentation. Again, if you want a fuller account, read the originals to which this post links.

In my opinion, Jim’s response leaves much to be desired. I intend to comment upon in some detail here, so please prepare for a longish post.

Chris writes in another of his many “I hate Jim West but I don’t want to say it outright” postings he notes

Just to set the record straight, I do not hate Jim West. He’s actually a likeable, low-key guy if you sit down and talk to him. I do, however, object, and strongly, to Jim’s substitution of pronouncements for argument—and, let’s be blunt, his unjustified attempts to point readers to his off-blog scholarship when challenged on-blog to explain the bases for his views.

After the introductory sentence above, Jim quoted the following snippet from my earlier post:

I am sick to death of holding my tongue when hard truths cry out to be spoken. So here is my challenge to Jim: either show us where you have previously published your “exegetical work” on the topic at hand (in this case, cessationism, but it could be anything), or stop ranting and start arguing, in the best of senses. Of course I have no “standing” or “authority” to make such a challenge, except as a fellow another (must … avoid … gender … bias) “biblioblogger” who does think, contrary to Jim’s assertion, that a blog can be a place for serious, meticulous work—and that arguments should be made, not merely posited.

Insofar as Jim’s quotation begins in mid-sentence, please allow me to present the entire first sentence, and the sentence just prior to it, as I originally posted them:

One last note: I fully realize that this post could be taken as rude, as picking a fight, as picking on Jim, or just generally being a pain in the posterior. But at the moment, due to factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jim or Michael or Pat, I am sick to death of holding my tongue when hard truths cry out to be spoken.

I emphasize a key phrase above only to underscore the fact that there is no “get Jim!” vendetta or anything of that sort lying behind my challenge.

Instead of answering the question, though, Jim responds with a counter-challenge:

To which I reply- simply- Chris, show us ANYTHING that you’ve written on any topic, besides on your blog, that justifies anything in the above cited post. The citations you provide of various and sundry bits by me are written for a specific sort of audience; and your failure to take that into account validates the presumption that your bias is irrational and misdirected.

First, I’m not sure how my own writing is even relevant to “justif[ying] anything in the above cited post.” In the “above cited post”—that is, my “challenge” post—I simply asked Jim to identify in which of his “book[s], article[s], essay[s], or published review[s]” he had presented “exegetical work” related to “cessationism,” the specific topic that ruffled Michael’s feathers and brought forth Michael’s comment. Why would anything I have written or not written validate or invalidate this question?

Second, I will readily admit that I have not published a single scholarly word about the topic of “cessationism.” Aside from memorizing a few stock cessationist arguments back in my college days—in the original post, I did mention that I was more sympathetic to Jim’s cessationist views than to Michael’s more “charismatic” views—I have never explored the topic in a scholarly way. However, I do not go around making dogmatic pronouncements about the topic, either.

Third, I challenge Jim’s claim that I failed to take into account the intended audience of his writings. In fact, if you go back and read my “challenge” post, I think you will see that I explicitly took audience into account, at least for some items in my list.

Fourth, Jim uses an interesting phrase: “various and sundry bits by me” (the “me” being Jim, just to make that absolutely clear). As far as I can tell, I considered every item on Jim’s own list of his books and essays, save one. I’m afraid I did overlook one article from the Scandiavian Journal of the Old Testament 19, “Competing Traditions and the Birth of Texts.” On my first pass, I intentionally skipped that one because I wanted to check my library’s online subscriptions, to see if I had digital access to that article. To my shame, I forgot to back and include this one on my list. However, that “article” is actually a long (12 pages) review of Ingrid Hjelm’s book Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty (T&T Clark, 2004), so it obviously can have nothing to do with the specific issue of cessationism. It’s actually quite an interesting book review and I enjoyed reading it, but a book review is not a place for making careful exegetical arguments, and Jim does not violate the genre’s convention in this regard. In short, Jim’s phrase, “various and sundry bits by me” seems calculated to sound like I cherry-picked irrelevant materials intended for non-scholarly audiences, working from an “irrational and misdirected” bias. To this, I can only respond that I would gladly give Jim’s “careful exegetical work” on cessationism, or on any topic of interest to me, a thorough and careful reading, if he would just tell me where to find it. I’ve gone through pretty much every work on his CV to which I had access, and can’t find that “careful exegetical work” anywhere.

Fifth, if Jim is looking for a “battle of the CVs,” I will just leave it up to interested readers to consider whether my own record of scholarship indicates an ability to produce “careful exegetical work” and to recognize it in the published work of others.

One more point before I conclude. Jim’s final paragraph reads as follows:

Finally, rather than feed Chris’s apparent obsession this will be both the last time I address or respond to him and the last time he is acknowledged by me. Not because his arguments have merit but because he seems to thrive on malicious denigration. If you don’t feed the beast, it dies.

I take it that Jim has no plans to answer the question about where his “careful exegetical work,” specifically on cessationism, is to be found. Apparently, rather than answer the question and point us (“us” being, at a minimum, myself and—if I may be so bold—Michael Westmoreland-White) to the work that Jim implicitly claims exists but declines to identify, Jim thinks it better to consider me nonexistent. It is, of course, a free country, and Jim is perfectly free to ignore me, and to delete me from his blogroll (as in fact he has already done). If my original post really did devolve into “malicious denigration,” or if this one has, I regret it; I don’t think that’s the case, but I leave that to you readers to decide (and those of you familiar with Jim’s posts on homeschooling or “charismatic” Christians might wish to compare and contrast my posts and his in the “malicious denigration” department). In any event, astute readers will notice that Jim’s blog has not disappeared from my sidebar (or my RSS aggregator), nor do I intend for it to do so. If I agree with Jim, I’ll say so (and have done so on many occasions in the past); if I disagree with Jim, I’ll say so (and have done so on a number of occasions in the past); if I pass on to my readers a news item posted on Jim’s blog, I’ll give him an appropriate hat tip (and have often done so in the past).

But I really wish that Jim would just start giving reasons for his views instead of blasting away at those who don’t share them—or, as in this case, at those who do share them but think that pronouncements are no substitute for argumentation.