Henke 2022bh

Lundahl 2022k – More Nonsense Involving the “Earliest Known Audience”

Kevin R. Henke

July 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I stated that:

“In Lundahl (2022d), Lundahl (2022f), Lundahl (2022b), and in several of his emails, Mr. Lundahl makes a totally unwarranted assumption that if the earliest known audience believed that Genesis 3 or another claim in an ancient text was historically true, then the claims must be true. Of course, this assumption is nonsense for the following reasons:

1. People lie and make up stories.

2. People misinterpret natural events and sometimes credit them to supernatural forces (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, severe storms, draught).

3. The history of Mormonism, Scientology, etc. demonstrate that lies can become accepted by thousands or even millions of gullible people in a short amount of time, perhaps in no more than decades or a century.

4. Even if ancient historians (such as the five ancient biographers of Alexander the Great, Section 6.0) were sincere and honest, they still may have included inaccurate information, false rumors and misinterpretations in their works.

5. We don’t know who wrote Genesis 3 and when it was written.

6. The Dead Sea scrolls have the oldest known fragments of Genesis. This was about 1,000 years after Moses supposedly wrote the book. So, how could the writers of the Dead Sea scrolls have reliably known anything about events that occurred perhaps a thousand or more years earlier? How does Mr. Lundahl know that Genesis 3 is not a fabrication that may have been additionally altered or rewritten long before the Dead Sea scrolls? Why should anyone trust the claims in Genesis? Lundahl (2022c) assumes that God would have protected Genesis from corruption, but this assumption is totally without merit.

7. The biology of snakes is incompatible with them talking and there’s no evidence of either a supernatural or biological Talking Snake ever existing.

8. As further discussed in Section 5.0 and Henke (2022a), Hypotheses #3 and #4 on the origin of the Genesis 3 Talking Snake are rational, but Hypotheses #1 and #2 are not.

9. Mr. Lundahl has the burden of evidence to demonstrate that the claims in Genesis 3 and elsewhere in the Bible are factual.

Mr. Lundahl fails to realize that ancient histories by themselves cannot be trusted, especially if they were written centuries or millennia after the supposed event that they are describing or if the documents are copies of copies of copies of copies... and not the originals Even if an ancient history happens to be an original copy describing an event that occurred at the time that the document was written, unless a claim in an ancient history is confirmed with independent external evidence, either in another manuscript or from archeology, there’s no reason to accept it as reliable history. There’s a big difference between an historical claim and a reliable historical claim.” [my original emphasis in italics only; my current emphasis in bold]

Lundahl (2022k) then replies with the following nonsense to the bolded section in Henke (2022b):

“Kevin R. Henke: // Mr. Lundahl makes a totally unwarranted assumption that if the earliest known audience believed that Genesis 3 or another claim in an ancient text was historically true, then the claims must be true. //

I defy Henke to give even one occurrence where I said it in this exact manner. [see my reply below]

My claim is, if the earliest known audience of a text believed it to be historic, it should be treated as historic, not as fiction. Not all history is true history, but some things alternative to truth are totally possible in fiction, which are not so in historic narratives, since these limit the scope to plausibly analysing fraudulent claims as such and plausibly analysing misunderstandings as such, and plausible combinations of either.” [my emphasis]

The statement in Lundahl (2022k) that “not all history is true history” is utter nonsense. Probable myths, legends, lies, and misinterpretations don’t deserve to be labelled history or historic at all. Even The Oxford English Dictionary, Mr. Lundahl’s preferred reference as indicated in his emails, clearly distinguishes history from fiction and legend, when it provides this definition of “historical”:

“Belonging to or of the nature of history as opposed to fiction or legend.”

So, I’m only interested in what Lundahl (2022k) redundantly calls “true history.” That is, using my < 1 to 99+ probability scale for past events that I introduced in Henke (2022b), I expect an account of a past event to have good evidence and rank well above 50/100 on my scale before I will take it seriously as history.

Now, I fully understand that any historical account is likely to contain some errors. A history of D-Day may get the time incorrect when the first Canadian troops landed on the beaches of France on June 6, 1944. An historical account of the Apollo 11 Moon landing may not get all of Neil Armstrong’s first words correct when he stepped on the Moon. However, overall, the accounts of the D-Day landings and the Moon landing are correct and historically reliable.

In contrast, I defy Mr. Lundahl to deny that he uses his “first known audience rule” to defend the reliability (= historicity) of Genesis 3. To be exact, that seems to be his only argument to support the reliability of Genesis 3. I will fully admit that the members of the Qumran Community, the producers of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the oldest known copies of Genesis, probably believed that Genesis 3 was history, as well as probably many generations before them. However, that does not mean that Genesis 3 actually happened. As further discussed in Henke (2022b) and my other replies in Henke (2022eo), myths may quickly spread and then become widely believed as “history” by subsequent generations for centuries to come. The “earliest known audience” scam is simply not a reliable indicator of whether a past event is likely history or myth.

Now, just to get a clear answer from Mr. Lundahl about whether or not he thought that the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 actually existed, I emailed him this question on February 14, 2022 at 9:04 am Eastern US time:

“No, Hans. You didn't answer my question. I'll make it easy for you. Which of the following actually existed?

A. President Abraham Lincoln

B. The Talking Snake of Genesis

C. Warner Brothers' Marvin the Martian

D. A and B only.”

This was his answer from an email on February 15, 2022 at 6:27 am Eastern US time:

“A and B only.

Warner Brothers' is by first known audience considered to be made up entertainment.

Abraham Lincoln and Genesis 3 aren't.”

Mr. Lundahl clearly believes that the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 was just as real and historical as US President Abraham Lincoln. So, how does Mr. Lundahl know that Genesis 3 is history rather than mythology? It’s obvious from his emails and essays that Mr. Lundahl relies on his “first known audience” scam. Because the “first known audience” supposedly thought that the Talking Snake story was real, apparently that’s a good enough reason for Mr. Lundahl to think that the Talking Snake was real and the account in Genesis 3 actually happened or, as I said in Henke (2022b):

“Mr. Lundahl makes a totally unwarranted assumption that if the earliest known audience believed that Genesis 3 or another claim in an ancient text was historically true, then the claims must be true.”

In Lundahl (2022i), Mr. Lundahl again clearly states that his “first known audience rule” provides “historical evidence”:

“The historical evidence and the philosophical possibility are two different debates, and for the historical evidence, I have already given the ‘first known audience rule’”

Lundahl (2022j) further states:

“The explanations of the doctrine the Church and I have about demons should not be confused with my arguing these doctrines true, which I actually do argue. Like, you know, referring to historic texts known to be such by ‘first known audience’ taking them for that.”

But, how good is this “historical evidence” from the “first known audience”? As examined in Henke (2022b) and my other essays in this debate, the “first known audience rule” is not good at all. As I’ve stated many times before, the archeological evidence in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), Dever (2005), and other studies found no evidence to support the creation, Flood, Exodus, and other stories in the Old Testament. They are probably myths and not history. These archeological sources provide us with important information on the true origin of the ancient Israelites. There’s no evidence that Moses was involved and he and Adam probably never existed. So, the “earliest known audience” in ancient Israel was absolutely wrong about their origins and the origins of humanity. Mr. Lundahl needs to find alternative evidence to convince people that Genesis 3 actually happened. Again, so far, I’ve seen no evidence from him that does not depend on his flawed “earliest known audience” argument, and again 21^st century Biblical archeology killed that concept.

References:

Dever, W.G. 2005. Did God Have a Wife?: Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 344pp.

Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts: The Free Press: New York, USA, 385pp.