This "Critique of Hershel Lee Harvell's Puritan Hard Drive Critique by Dr. Reg Barrow" was originally written as a response in the comments section of the Reformed Reader blog and has been left in its original format.

This "Critique of the Puritan Hard Drive Critique" was not posted on the Reformed Reader blog due to technical and other issues. The blog owners decided that they would link to this "Critique of the Puritan Hard Drive Critique" rather than try to make it fit in the comments section of their blog, as my attempts to post it there were unsuccessful (probably due to its length). This information will help you to understand some of what is written below, in the context of the audience for which it was originally written.

Dear Hershel:

Before I write anything more, I would just like you to know that we love you in the Lord and we continue to pray for you, as a brother in the Lord, even in the light of what we have learned about your continued actions to libel us (online) and slander us via phone calls.

We have also asked some of our affiliates (who have mentioned your harassing calls and emails about the Puritan Hard Drive) to pray along with us and do their best to minister to you (if you continue in your campaign to sully our name and work to them), as this is in accord with the way scripture teaches us to respond to such unbecoming behavior. We've done this in a continuing effort to be a blessing to you and with the hope that our Lord may grant that you would learn to speak the truth about other brothers in Christ - and that you would learn to rejoice with us in the great thing the Lord has done in giving our generation (and future generations) such an amazing Puritan study and Reformation research tool like the Puritan Hard Drive. Moreover, we harbor no ill will toward you and continue to hope the best for you - and will continue to pray for you no matter how much you speak falsehood about our work and ministry.

However, since there is no way for others to substantiate many of the errors, inconsistencies and even outright lies in your review, I will provide just one example below (from your review) about how grossly inaccurate your review of the Puritan Hard Drive actually is, on a point that others can easily verify - if they have the Puritan Hard Drive or even if they have the free Puritan Hard Drive demo software which is available for download here. So I will invite all readers of this blog to verify what I write directly below for themselves, so that they will know for certain that what I write on this point is the truth and that what Hershel has written is a lie (and thus a violation of the ninth commandment).

Hershel, in your "Puritan Hard Drive Critique or A Critique of the SWRB Puritan Hard Drive" you write,

Nothing could be further from the truth, and if you had been attempting to write an even somewhat honest review, rather than just using your review to libel our work and ministry, you could have easily determined that not only does the Puritan Hard Drive contain 2,208 Reformed Baptist books, MP3s and videos, but that the massive number of Reformed Baptist resources on the PHD make the Puritan Hard Drive the largest, by far, single publishing event of Reformed Baptist resources in all of history!

Thus, rather than libelling and slandering our work (in the Puritan Hard Drive), had you been in tune with what the Lord is accomplishing through the Puritan Hard Drive, you should have been rejoicing that so many of the best Reformed Baptist works, from throughout history right up to our day, were being made inexpensively (under three cents per resource in the Single Platform Edition of the PHD) and easily accessible to Christians all over the world - for their edification.

What is even more telling (and sad) about your errant review of the Puritan Hard Drive is all you had to do to ascertain this fact (i.e., that the Puritan Hard Drive contains 2,208 Reformed Baptist books, MP3s and videos, and that this makes it the largest single publishing event of Reformed Baptist resources in all of history), was to simply select the category "Reformed Baptist," using "Select Category from List," in a search window (which can effortlessly be accomplished using "New Search" in the top menu and choosing "Start New Search"), and then clicking on the "Search" button, and you would have been able to find out just how far from the truth your own review of the Puritan Hard Drive was to become.

What makes your public lie on this point even more egregious, when you write, "I think it to be false advertising to state that this hard drive contains Reformed Baptist materials," especially in light of the fact that the Puritan Hard Drive is the largest single publishing event in the history of Reformed Baptist thought, is that the "Select Category from List" is the second largest button on the main search screen of the Puritan Hard Drive. It would have taken you all of 10-15 seconds, or less, (to use this simple, obvious and intuitive feature) to have avoided this lie, by simply using what is the main search screen on the PHD. Yet your research skills (and possibly your ungodly motives, only the Lord knows what was in your heart when you made a colossal blunder like this, to libel our work in the Puritan Hard Drive) are such that it would seem you did not even try to verify one of the major points in your review from the Puritan Hard Drive itself - when this could easily have been accomplished using one of the most elementary search techniques on the Puritan Hard Drive.

This is shameful behavior when dealing with brothers in the Lord (as we are your brothers in the Lord at SWRB) - and is frightful behavior when we consider it is attempting to publicly impede the pathway to blessing which the Lord has ordained for Christians all over the world and for His own declarative glory, by His grace, through the Puritan Hard Drive (as a secondary cause).

That there are 2,208 Reformed Baptist books, MP3s and videos, on the Puritan Hard Drive, is something anyone can verify without even purchasing the Puritan Hard Drive, by simply downloading the free Puritan Hard Drive demo software. To verify that what I write is the truth simply click on "New Search" in the top menu and choose "Start New Search," then click on "Select Category from List," then click on "Reformed Baptist" and click on the "Search" button. By doing this you will almost instantly see there are 2,208 resources in the "Reformed Baptist" category on the Puritan Hard Drive.