Henke 2022dh

Both the Provenance of the Book of Mormon and the Biblical “Normal Historic Collective Memory” are Untrustworthy

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I quoted Henke (2022a) and stated:

“In Henke (2022a), I proposed four hypotheses to explain Genesis 3 with its Talking Snake story:

1. The Talking Snake existed and the account in Genesis 3 was accurately passed down by Adam to Moses. Moses then wrote it down in Genesis. There would have been no human eyewitnesses for most of the events in Genesis 1-2:14. If Genesis 1-2:14 is history, God would have to have given the information in these verses as visions.

2. Moses saw Genesis 1-3 and perhaps most or even all of everything else in Genesis through visions given by God. There didn’t need to be a continuous human transmission of information from Adam to Moses. Visions from God would not be open to errors unlike written or oral transmissions from Adam to Moses.

3. The Talking Snake of Genesis 3 was part of a made-up campfire story, a parable or based on a pagan myth that eventually was taken as fact by the ancient Israelites, like how President Reagan and his fans mistook fictional stories from World War 2 as real. William Tell (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-search-of-william-tell-2198511/ ) and a number of Roman Catholic saints (https://listverse.com/2014/05/17/10-beloved-saints-with-fictitious-biographies/ ) are probably also myths. Of course, in the United States, pro-abortionists regularly use fictional TV shows to convince Americans that abortion is a good thing. Even though they are fiction, many people believe the propaganda. Right now, a lot of Russians are believing the fictional propaganda their government is inventing about Ukraine. People also often pick and choose parts of fictional stories that they want to believe and ignore the rest, such as individuals believing in the existence of “The Force” from the Star Wars movies, while recognizing that the rest of the movies are fiction. A lot of people are gullible and believe fictions are real.

4. “Prophets” or others claimed to have visions from God about events that supposedly happened thousands of years earlier. These visions were delusions or outright lies, but a lot of people came to believe them. Joseph Smith also did this and Kat Kerr continues with this nonsense in the US.” [my emphasis]

The bolded paragraph is Hypothesis #4, which states that delusions or deliberate lies were used to construct and promote Genesis 3.

In response, Lundahl (2022m) states:

He already said so much in letter XV [email to Mr. Lundahl on February 17, 2022 at 7:29PM Eastern US time]:

Kevin R. Henke: ‘There are partial copies of Genesis in the Dead Sea scrolls, but the bottom line is that we don't know who wrote Genesis 3 or when. It's very possible that the writer sincerely thought that Genesis 3 was an inspiration from God about events that occurred thousands of years ago from the author's time. However, that does not make it history any more than the ramblings of Joseph Smith about supposed events that occurred in the Americas thousands of years ago before him or the delusions or lies of Kat Kerr about "Christmas Town" in Heaven. It does not take very long for a charismatic con-man to form a religion and get millions to believe fiction and half-truths - Mohammad or Joseph Smith. Any blood relationships of Mormons to 18th and 19th century novelists doesn't matter at all. The point is that there are millions of people believing that fiction was actually ancient history.’

Me in letter XVI, and I start with last first [email to me on February 18, 2022 at 7:37AM Eastern US time]:

Mr. Lundahl: ‘Mormonism doesn't qualify, because all Mormons know perfectly well that this "true" history isn't part of their normal historic collective memory as Europeans, nor a heritage from actually speaking to Indians, but a revelation or "lost manuscript refound". This is not "pedantic trivia" but absolutely essential to my case.’

I recognize that many of our readers may not want to wade through the extensive and informal exchanges in Mr. Lundahl’s and my raw emails, so I took some of my thoughts in those emails, sometimes I added more references and other materials, and then restated them in the more formal formats in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b). Now, because I mentioned the lies and misinterpretations about Christopher Columbus in my emails, but not in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), I think that it’s perfectly fine for Lundahl (2022m) to quote my emails and discuss the topic (also see my response, Henke 2022dg). In Henke (2022k) and Henke (2022L), I also commented on statements in Mr. Lundahl’s emails where he attempts to defend his inexcusably bad spelling and referencing. Nevertheless, on other topics that I discuss in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), like Mormonism or Star Wars, Mr. Lundahl should have placed more emphasis on my more recent and official essays rather than neglecting them or placing more emphasis on my earlier, more informal, and less meticulous emails.

Now, I agree with Mr. Lundahl that Joseph Smith Jr. was a false prophet and that the Book of Mormon is a work of fiction. However, the Mormons have a point. As I discuss in Henke (2022bL) and Henke (2022bw), the Mormons would argue that the “history”, “supernatural inspiration” and “transmission” of the Book of Mormon are far more reliable than the uncollaborated and highly questionable “normal historic collective memory” associated with the handwritten copies of copies of copies… of the Bible handed down over thousands of years. Memories fail and, over the centuries, hand copied manuscripts are too prone to errors and deliberate manipulation. While the Mormons have copies of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, we have no original copies or first editions of any book of the Bible. As I stated before, our oldest copies of Biblical books are from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are copies of copies of copies…, perhaps produced up to a 1,000 years after some of the originals. We simply do not know what the originals of any Biblical book looked like or how these Bible books may have been altered and edited over the centuries. There’s absolutely no external and reliable evidence to support the tradition that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or that he ever lived. The “normal historic collective memory” associated with the Pentateuch, in particular, is no better than the Book of Mormon. The desire of Mr. Lundahl and other conservative Christians to believe in an Israelite “historic collective memory” is no more than a desperate wish so that they can try to justify their desires to believe in an historic Adam, Eve, Talking Snake, Abraham and Moses. There is no archaeological or other external evidence to indicate that their wishes are based in reality (e.g., Finkelstein and Silberman 2001).

Reference:

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.