Raw Emails Lundahl and Henke (Februrary 13 to December 1, 2022)
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXXXX>
Sun, Feb 13, 6:44 AM (9 days ago)
to me
Meaning here, and a few more are upcoming:
Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Gutsick Gibbon on Cross Disciplinarity Outlawed in Academia, Heat Problem, Gate-Keeping · Gutsick Gibbon's Five Points Answered, I, Heat Problem and Extra on Absence of Solutions As Criterium · Gutsick Gibbon on Overturning Paradigms and Castile Formation · Geologic Column : Absent from Land Vertebrate Palaeontology · Creation vs. Evolution : Could Guy Berthault Conduct a New Experiment, Please?
Second, everything I said about how history in general is known is clear and pertinent.
You may or you may not get someone in a peer reviewed journal on history agree with me, but you will not get anyone pretend for instance that we have texts by Alexander's generals - or that coins of non-human entities or fictions don't exist - or that the artefacts of Alexander outside coins (statue and mozaic) are contemporary to him.
We have the narrative about Alexander from sources written down centuries after he lived. Exactly as with Hannibal. And when it comes to slight attempts to battle-field archaeology, these would have been as inadequate for these two as with Waterloo. In case you didn't notice, the fact that "Waterloo teeth" come from the battle field cannot be proven by dentistry, it can only be proven by the narrative the dentists were offering and are offering now.
I offer exactly one basic criterium on how to divide narrative that is historic fact from narrative meant as fiction : how the earliest known audience of the narrative took it.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Feb 13, 11:24 PM (9 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans.
Thanks for emailing me and I hope that you have a good Valentine's Day (an unofficial holiday in the US). You are quite right. Erika emailed me and found your two emails in her spam folder. She was surprised because that had not happened to her before. Nevertheless, I apologize for doubting you and I noted that in the comments section of Erika's video.
My requirements for any debate are listed here:
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/debates
Probably like you, I'm very busy, but I'll try to respond to your emails as time permits. That probably won't be more than once per day and it may be only a few times per week depending on how much research is needed and what else I'm doing. I was once in an email debate with an individual that lasted for 10 years. We'll see if we break that record!
You tend to trust "the earliest known audience of the narrative that took it." This is a flawed policy. People lie and make up stories about past events all the time. Eyewitnesses often misinterpret events, especially if they're superstitious. To determine if a past event is likely (I recognize that nothing is ever absolutely proven), you need multiple and diverse sources of contemporary independent evidence and conformation, If numerous and independent eyewitnesses on different continents reported seeing a comet passing through certain constellations in a particular year, then the comet was probably there. We could further confirm this by trying to find it, calculate its orbit and past near-passes with the Earth. As I indicated earlier, I will certainly accept statements by Livy, Josephus and other ancient historians writing long after the events IF their claims could be confirmed by archeology and other contemporary evidence. Nevertheless, often we cannot confirm what the ancients wrote and we just have to remain skeptical until adequate evidence comes forward to support their claims, if ever. I think that there's enough evidence through contemporary coins, statues and records to state that Alexander the Great existed and was a powerful military leader. The Roman historians were right, at least about that much. You stated in your previous posts that this archeological evidence is not contemporary and unreliable. Then, produce your archeological references to support your claims once we finish with Genesis 3 and I'll also do so at that time.
Now, give me the articles, links to internet essays and any other sources that have evidence that Genesis 3 is history and not just a made up story. The fall of Adam and Eve is a critical foundational issue in Christianity and you need to stop ignoring the serious controversies over its historicity. That's the bottom line. Once we have dealt with Genesis 3, then we can discuss Alexander the Great, Waterloo dentures, etc. I recognize that you have already admitted that you are not an expert on geology, but I might raise additional objections to your earlier comments on this and dinosaurs in the future. If you have no historical evidence for Genesis 3, just admit it and stop procrastinating and wasting our time. You either have evidence of Genesis 3 or you don't and simply believe in it because you want to. After that, you could then try to convince me that the historical data on Alexander the Great, Waterloo, etc. are no better than Genesis 3 if that's your plan. Yet, I don't see how anyone could rationally believe that the evidence for Alexander the Great is no better than a Talking Snake or magic fruit trees. Whatever you say, you will need to provide evidence and thoroughly reliable references to back up your claims. I'll do the same.
Best
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Feb 14, 7:27 AM (8 days ago)
to me
I'll answer, in great detail, your argument:
"You tend to trust "the earliest known audience of the narrative that took it." "
I tend to take genre assignment (historic vs made up) according to how earliest known audience took it. Accounts that are undoubtedly historical include mistakes and lies. Oradour sur Glane was destroyed, one account says by German occupant, one account says Resistance blew up dynamite by bad handling and blamed the Germans. ONE of these accounts MUST be wrong.
In the case of Legio Fulminatrix, the prayers of Christian legionaries and those of an Egyptian magician could be combined into one account (leaving at least one of the prayers outside the explanation), but not with great probability. A legion entirely made up of Christian legionaries would not likely have tolerated a magician, Egyptian or otherwise. However, for instance a Christian priest could have been misinterpreted by Pagans as a magician, and if he was Coptic, we have Egyptian too. On the other side, an Egyptian magician with an entirely un-Christian legion could have worked the prodigy and some Christian might have wanted to cash in on it - as a Christian, I find this less likely. You know the story from Carrier, right?
"This is a flawed policy. People lie and make up stories about past events all the time."
Not quite so often as to make history a desperate pursuit. But often enough for one to have to decide (subjectively) which of two conflicting accounts is the most likely. See above. Making up for fun tends to be preserved in the genre "made up for fun"
"Eyewitnesses often misinterpret events,"
Sometimes, and obviously when it comes to the strength of Hercules, I consider paternity by Jove is a very major misinterpretation.
"especially if they're superstitious."
In mouths of Atheists and (by extension, since culturally similar) Agnostics, "superstitious" tends to mean "believing the supernatural" which I obviously disagree with, both as a definition and when it comes to determining whether misunderstanding is likelier than taking the account straight off. Btw, a misunderstanding doesn't belie the event as external event, it's usually concerned with explanations. Tiryns being wrong on why Hercules was strong doesn't belie he killed a lion with his hands.
"To determine if a past event is likely (I recognize that nothing is ever absolutely proven), you need multiple and diverse sources of contemporary independent evidence and conformation,"
They are a plus, but you do not need them. Their absence only belies the event if the presence would be expected. As I was just discussing, with events in Antiquity, these plusses are usually lacking.
The school of history you refer to was founded in Sweden arguably at my own alma mater, Lund, by one Weibull. It works, as said, tolerably well for recent history, but is very bad for earlier history. It was arguably calculated from a desire to stamp things like Book I in Livy or Ynglinga Saga as myths, at least for the earlier parts.
I saw a video stating "Vikings" from the Vendel era had been found in Estonia, 40 of them in a mass grave. This fits very well with Adils (thought mythical by Weibull) starting the Swedish presence in Finland. Swedes back then would not have distinguished Finns and Estonians as two different peoples, so the only misunderstanding would have been in relation to later nation boundaries.
"If numerous and independent eyewitnesses on different continents reported seeing a comet passing through certain constellations in a particular year, then the comet was probably there."
Great way of assessing 19th, 20th, 21st C. comets. Perhaps you could find a Chinese or Hindu witness to Halley's comet in 1066, but we didn't wait for those before believing it.
"We could further confirm this by trying to find it, calculate its orbit and past near-passes with the Earth."
Here we have history needing further support from natural laws determining a phenomenon ... it seems, history is simply not your thing.
"As I indicated earlier, I will certainly accept statements by Livy, Josephus and other ancient historians writing long after the events IF their claims could be confirmed by archeology and other contemporary evidence."
Livy's Romulus counted as infirmed a few decades ago, since earliest townscape was carbon dated to 550 BC. However, we know from Minze Stuiver and Berndt Becker that most years from 750 (the nearabouts of Romulus) to 450 (into the Republic) carbon date as 550 BC, it's called the Hallstadt plateau and has been proven by dendrochronology. Even if I were sceptical on finding an absolute dating by dendro this far back, I'd accept this as the outer limits have carbon dates I accept. Here is the work:
High-Precision Decadal Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale, AD 1950–6000 BC
Minze Stuiver (a1) and Bernd Becker (a2)
In other words, Romulus (son of Mars according to Pagans, but not all ancients who accepted his historicity) is now weakly confirmed rather than strongly infirmed. It was a mistake to ditch him in the first place.
"Nevertheless, often we cannot confirm what the ancients wrote and we just have to remain skeptical until adequate evidence comes forward to support their claims, if ever."
No. That's not how one certifies Ancient History. It's not how my strongly Atheist Latin teacher would have confirmed Hannibal.
"I think that there's enough evidence through contemporary coins, statues and records to state that Alexander the Great existed and was a powerful military leader. The Roman historians were right, at least about that much."
It so happens, they did not bother to prove it your way.
To them, ancient narrative was enough, especially if given by prestigious Greeks. And for that matter about matters like Trojan War or more recent, since events before the Trojan War were counted as myths - meaning both that the stories are lifting, and that the cultural distance would make verification less stringent. Nevertheless, Plutarch considered Theseus and Romulus fairly comparable.
Coins don't prove a story that's not already credible otherwise.
Harry Potter Coins and Medals | Monnaie de Paris
"You stated in your previous posts that this archeological evidence is not contemporary and unreliable."
I stated coins are not reliable, and the other archaeological evidence is not contemporary. And I also stated, this does not matter in the presence of a narrative from earlier generations that's not contested by an alternative one.
"Then, produce your archeological references to support your claims once we finish with Genesis 3 and I'll also do so at that time."
I don't think you need any. That was my exact point. You have some, but they are far less decisive than the narrative from the ancients.
"Now, give me the articles, links to internet essays and any other sources that have evidence that Genesis 3 is history and not just a made up story."
I gave you Haydock's comment for a brief overlook over the question. Genesis 3 is unlikey to be archaeologically evidenced as earthly paradise before the Flood can hardly be dug up. However, there is some evidence of the four rivers going outward to the corners of Earth's landmasses, if we look at directions of rivers.
Creation vs. Evolution : Trying to Break Down "Reverse Danube" or "Reverse Euphrates" Concept
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/07/trying-to-break-down-reverse-danube-or.html
Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Damien Mackey on Four Rivers and Related, I to X
Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Continuing Previous, XI to XX - are Nile Rivers Excluded?
"The fall of Adam and Eve is a critical foundational issue in Christianity and you need to stop ignoring the serious controversies over its historicity. That's the bottom line."
I'm not ignoring them, I'm answering them.
"Once we have dealt with Genesis 3, then we can discuss Alexander the Great, Waterloo dentures, etc."
On the contrary. You ditch Genesis 3 because it is just ancient narrative, and thereby you show you are badly equipped to discuss Alexander the Great.
"I recognize that you have already admitted that you are not an expert on geology, but I might raise additional objections to your earlier comments on this and dinosaurs in the future. If you have no historical evidence for Genesis 3, just admit it and stop procrastinating and wasting our time."
I have precisely the kind of evidence that you wrongly have decided to consider dismissable : ancient narrative.
"You either have evidence of Genesis 3 or you don't and simply believe in it because you want to."
You either take ancient narrative as evidence, or you believe Alexander the Great on the wrong basis.
"After that, you could then try to convince me that the historical data on Alexander the Great, Waterloo, etc. are no better than Genesis 3 if that's your plan."
* Adam told Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Mahaleel; Seth told Enosh, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared, Enoch; and so on, until we have the account of Moses.
* Scipio Africanus told his children and his adoptive grandson Scipio Aemilianus, and so on, until we have the account of Livy.
* Alexander's generals made accounts that we don't have, Diodorus Siculus had access to them and used them for his extant account.
"Yet, I don't see how anyone could rationally believe that the evidence for Alexander the Great is no better than a Talking Snake or magic fruit trees."
You have a problem in using the miraculous parts as evidence against historicity.
Rule of Nero is historical? Nero killing Agrippina (his mother) is at least credible as conspiracy theory?
Well, Tacitus used as confirmation of his guilt that a woman at that moment gave birth to a snake. 23 March AD 59 is not far off from Tacitus' writing the Annals before the end of 120 AD (when he died).
As for Tacitus having access to Acta Senatus, it is probable, on the same basis as Haydock's theory about how Adam's account reached Moses : as a theory showing the transmission of historic material is possible as such.
Modern scholars believe that as a Roman senator, Tacitus had access to Acta Senatus—the Roman senate's records—which provided a solid basis for his work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_(Tacitus)
[4] The annals by Cornelius Tacitus, Anthony John Woodman 2004 ISBN 0-87220-558-4 pages x to xx
Modern scholars themselves do not have access to Acta Senatus and cannot verify how much or little Tacitus depends on these.
"Whatever you say, you will need to provide evidence and thoroughly reliable references to back up your claims. I'll do the same."
What I am discussing is your inability to see what constitutes such when it comes to ancient history.
I'll give you one example more, against Weibull. He obviously did not believe that Odin had come to the Uppsala region. However, if Odin had that, it would have been while Proto-Norse was spoken. He could not be author of a poem in Old Norse as to that linguistic trapping. However, in oral transmission of poetry, language can change. Jackson Crawford had a friend who reconstructed the Proto-Norse version of a stanza of Havamal (one which has links to Qoheleth) ... and the Proto-Norse version, while not exactly the same in metre, is still metrical.
In disciplines outside the Bible, you get old "myths" and "semi-mythic legends" more and more confirmed, starting when Schliemann dug up Troy. It's just Bible scholarship that lags behind.
You have another problem, when you say the foundational nature of Genesis 3 is apt to through reasonable doubts in it. I don't doubt the Muslim accounts of Mohammed or Mormon ones of Joseph Smith as to their history (confer the distinction about Hercules : the Nemean lion may have argued him son of Zeus to those believing in Zeus, but it is definitely worth believing even without believing in Zeus). That is also a bad move when attacking historicity of Genesis 3.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 14, 9:04 AM (8 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
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.
After you answer this question, I'll deal with the rest of your claims in your email and your earlier statements.
Be open about what you believe and stop dancing around the edges.
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Tue, Feb 15, 6:27 AM (7 days ago)
to me
A and B only.
Warner Brothers' is by first known audience considered to be made up entertainment.
Abraham Lincoln and Genesis 3 aren't.
Now, there are a lot of things Weibull school of history could show on Lincoln, which it can't for Genesis 3 - but much of it would be lacking for Alexander and Hannibal, as already explained. Do you get it this time?
I wasn't dancing about the edges, I was answering point after point.
Hans Georg Lundahl
As I have already mentioned Weibull ...
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Feb 15, 2022, 7:09 AM (12 days ago)
to me
Here is the article in English and then in Swedish:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Weibull
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Weibull
And here is the paragraph we are concerned with.
His most important and acclaimed work is a criticism regarding the interpretation and the ahistoricism of the Gesta Danorum by the 12th century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus. This piece was named: Saxo. Kritiska undersökningar i Danmarks historia från Sven Estridsens död till Canute VI (Saxo. Critical studies in Denmark's history from Sven Estriden's death to Canute VI), and was rather controversial at the time, as it revealed the vague basis of Denmark's older history of the time.
While the Swedish article is more detailed:
Under åren 1915 till 1921 framlade han ett antal mycket kritiska uppsatser, som angrep den svenska historieskrivningen runt 1000-talet för tradering, det vill säga att den byggde på uppgifter som överförts i flera led och förvanskats över tid. Han menade att historieskrivare som Snorre Sturlasson och Saxo Grammaticus i alltför hög utsträckning hade använt isländskt sagomaterial baserade på muntliga källor, i förhållande till användningen av källor som runinskrifter, Vita Anskarii, Adam av Bremens Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, samt norsk-isländska skaldedikter. En av de händelser där han visar på motsägelser i de olika källorna är beskrivningen av Slaget vid Svolder.
This translates as:
During the years 1915 to 1921 he proposed a series of very critical essays, which attacked the Swedish historiography around XIth C. because of the phenomenon of "traditing" - meaning it built on facts that had been tradited over many intermediates and had been distorted over time. He considered that historiographers like Snorre Sturluson and Saxo Grammaticus too much used Icelandic - saga material / tale material - based on oral sources, as against sources like Rune inscriptions, Vita Anskarii, the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen, and Norwegian-Icelandic scaldic poetry. One of the events where he shows contradictions in the diverse sources is how the Battle at Svolder is described.
My point being of course, like Livy, Saxo and Snorre were using orally transmitted material and that he was wrong to ditch this.
Rune inscriptions are very short, therefore very unspecific as to historical concatenations of events.
Vita Anskarii and Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum are the pov by foreign missionaries - very unconcerned with events largely prior to missionaries arriving. And their descriptions of contemporary events and institutions are largely limited to areas where they had missionaries sent. Scaldic poetry is by definition flattering court poetry and always intends to flatter one particular man.
And there are with totally Weibull compatible dissing of oral sources also contradictions between accounts of battles way later on.
Now, the point I am making is, Snorre and Saxo were using material as old as the arrival of Odin in Sweden, with his stepson's son's Fyolner drowning in a vat of mead at the court of Frotho Haddingson. They differ on whether ...
a) Snorre, Frotho Haddingson = Peace-Frotho, contemporary of Augustus
or b) Frotho Haddingson, to Saxo = Frotho I, while Peace-Frotho = Frotho II, centuries later.
This means, we deal with historians who wrote down things that had been orally transmitted for over 1000 years.
With pre-Flood and early-post-Flood longer lifespans, the account which Moses certainly, Abraham (in my view probably) before him wrote down is closer to the space dividing Trojan War from Homer than to that dividing Odin from Saxo or Snorre.
And yes, to me, unlike Curt Weibull, this is enough for at least basic historic credibility, if not infallibility of each detail.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Feb 15, 8:03 PM (7 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I hope you are doing well. Thanks for finally answering my question. We can now continue.
You asked me: "show one example where one generation invented stuff for entertainment and the next or their descendants believed it as fact. Not one single example shown." I think that the Book of Mormon is an example. Although I don't think the Spaulding Manuscript Hypothesis is convincing, I think that Joseph Smith plagiarized one or more entertaining novels that were written at that time, where members of the 10 lost tribes of Israel sailed to the Americas. The Mormons came to believe that story as history. Skeptic and magician James Randi used to complain that people thought that his entertaining magic shows involved real supernatural powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi . In the US about 40% of Americans believe that some people have psychic or other supernatural powers despite the legal claims that the psychics have to give that their work is for entertainment only. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/ It's not unusual for people to be deceived into thinking that entertainment, hoaxes or practical jokes are real. This includes scientists and other trained professionals that should know better. People also often take novels very seriously. Although "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a work of fiction, it proved to be a powerful work for Abolitionists. I think that too many people take Ayn Rand's philosophical novels too seriously. In the US we have numerous "urban legends", which are false information derived from misinterpretations derived from novels, misinterpretations, hoaxes and practical jokes that are widely believed as fact in the US. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_legends In the 1980s, photographs and films from the Gulf Breeze UFO hoaxes even fooled physicist Bruce Maccabee, who is an expert on interpreting hoaxes in photos and films. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Breeze_UFO_incident
Next, I'll send you a reply on the historical evidence for Alexander the Great. I'll explain why I think it's reasonable to conclude that he lived and was a powerful military leader. I'll then compare that with the Talking Snake of Genesis 3. I'll deal with the other issues that you've raised: Carl Weibull, dinosaurs, Waterloo, Hannible, etc. one by one in the upcoming months to years. I only want to concentrate on one issue at a time. Considering that I'm very busy with other projects, I'll get back to you on my views on Alexander the Great probably sometime in March. It might be sooner, depending on everything I find. I want to do a thorough job and not be rushed.
Thanks for your patience
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Wed, Feb 16, 6:47 AM (6 days ago)
to me
"I think that the Book of Mormon is an example. Although I don't think the Spaulding Manuscript Hypothesis is convincing, I think that Joseph Smith plagiarized one or more entertaining novels that were written at that time, where members of the 10 lost tribes of Israel sailed to the Americas. The Mormons came to believe that story as history."
Obviously, if you are right about the matter, we here have one man actually deceiving (unless he was deceived by demons) - and equally obviously, the content was changed to be rendered less identifiable and to suit specifics of Mormon belief. Once this deception is done, we are not dealing with entertainment but with deception.
We do not have descendants of the novelists directly taking the novels as history.
And I'd like to know the titles of this or of these entertaining novels.
"Skeptic and magician James Randi used to complain that people thought that his entertaining magic shows involved real supernatural powers"
But here we don't have a story, we have an enactment ... and the complaint would be real good publicity, so a thing he would be likely to invent. The Dimond Brothers are obviously right that some preternatural and demonic things point to the reality of the Gospel indirectly (as against Atheism), but I think they are wrong to assume Bian lian is done by demons.
By the way, all the things I have so far seen attributed to Odin (at his visit to Sweden) are compatible with what a good (but highly abusive) hypnotist could achieve for a few well conditioned subjects (which would have been strategically chosen among the previous rulers).
"In the US about 40% of Americans believe that some people have psychic or other supernatural powers despite the legal claims that the psychics have to give that their work is for entertainment only."
I don't think the legal claims are always sincere, and we are not dealing with a story of events, but with an explanation. I would also consider the practising psychics would not necessarily coincide with those who have the "psychic powers".
"It's not unusual for people to be deceived into thinking that entertainment, hoaxes or practical jokes are real."
In cases like men who hold weights they shouldn't been able to lift and things like that - less likely to happen about an event in your community's past. Or totally unlikely. Again, deliberate deception, as from Odin or Joseph Smith, is another matter. But even that has to be out of sight of the deceived community's immediate memory. Odin could fool Swedes he had created the world, but not that the Swedes had been created by him as he arrived. Joseph Smith could fool Americans about pre-Columbian history, but was not pretending to be attending a service by Ten Tribes Pre-Columbians at a regular basis in Harmony PA. Mohammed's Coran could be inaccurate about relation between Aaron and Our Lord's Blessed Mother, but not about the Ethiopian attempted invasion around his birth time to Mecca.
"People also often take novels very seriously. Although "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a work of fiction, it proved to be a powerful work for Abolitionists."
How many tried to fund Arthur Shelby's rebuying the farm? Fiction should be taken seriously on the moral level.
"I think that too many people take Ayn Rand's philosophical novels too seriously."
Phew ... then you aren't the crew who says that about LotR! You know the saying "if you read one of Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings in your teens and take it seriously, one is likely to leave you emotionally stunted and incapable of dealing with real life - and the other one of course involves orcs" (quoting from memory and haven't the citation ready, sorry).
Same thing for Isaac Asimov's Foundation. It's taken too seriously.
Re : urban legends.
// Bloody Mary is a folklore legend consisting of a ghost or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is called multiple times. The Bloody Mary apparition may be benign or malevolent, depending on historic variations of the legend. The Bloody Mary appearances are mostly "witnessed" in group participation game /// Baby Train is an urban legend which claims that a small town had an unusually high birth rate because a train would pass through the town at 5:00 am and blow its whistle, waking up all the residents. Since it was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up, couples would have sex. This resulted in the mini baby-boom. //
This is the kind of things people will say about the universe they live in, but neither of them is a historical statement about unique events in the community's past as they recall it.
I am not going into whether Gulf Breeze actually was a hoax or not, if rather the debunking was a hoax. While I don't believe in aliens, I do believe in, for instance, demons showing themselves in various shapes. But the question was not about hoaxes, but about things deliberately shared for fun and originally taken as entertainment. How do they, if at all, change into false historic past?
"Next, I'll send you a reply on the historical evidence for Alexander the Great. I'll explain why I think it's reasonable to conclude that he lived and was a powerful military leader. I'll then compare that with the Talking Snake of Genesis 3."
Do.
"I want to do a thorough job and not be rushed."
Don't get rushed.
"I'll deal with the other issues that you've raised: Carl Weibull, dinosaurs, Waterloo, Hannible, etc. one by one in the upcoming months to years. I only want to concentrate on one issue at a time."
Less appreciated - Carl Weibull and Hannibal are part of the same issue as Alexander the Great : namely on the past being known mainly by narrative and not always even contemporary one. I'd prefer one principled reasoning and threshing that out.
But obviously, if you deny both Alexander and Hannibal being examples, you could reason each one of them as you presume it to be a counterexample.
Hans Georg Lundahl
PS, [personal comment deleted by KRH]./HGL
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Wed, Feb 16, 7:36 PM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Here are some possible sources that Joseph Smith used for the Book of Mormon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Book_of_Mormon
It's certainly possible that some of the descendants of Solomon Spalding, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Gilbert J. Hunt are Mormons. I don't know. Nevertheless, the point is that Joseph Smith and others have taken ideas and phrases from works of fiction, included them in their works and then passed them off as historical fact.
President Ronald Reagan was getting somewhat senile during his last term in office. He would sometimes confuse movie plots with history. For example, at the annual ceremony for the Congressional Medal of Honor in October 1983, he cited a fictitious event either from the 1944 movie "A wing and a Prayer" or a 1944 Reader's Digest article as an example of courage during WWII. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/10/12/reagans-whoppers/7e548625-b462-4b75-852d-b49a2f439393/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars-Erik_Nelson My grandmothers in the last years of their lives would also think that their delusions were real. So, people are frequently tricked by crooks (like Joseph Smith or Nigerian Princes) or mistaken by leaders into believing that fictional events are real. I don't believe that demons are involved in any of this. It's just that people are often gullible and unwise and crooks know how to exploit that.
Best
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu, Feb 17, 6:55 AM (5 days ago)
to me
The point is, while Spalding, Hoffmann, Hunt were used as sources for the book of Mormon, possibly, and some of their descendants (improbably with Hoffmann, he died of syphilis at 46 bc a celibate) may have been Mormons, that's not what we are looking for.
The point is, Hunt's descendants (if any) didn't come to think that the book ... I looked it up and didn't find any Hunt.
I actually found no novelist ... wait, I did find the Hunt reference.
The point is, "The Late War between the United States and Great Britain" contributed nothing to events in Book of Mormon. It also is not a novel. It is a contemporary account (1816 in relation to 1812) of a real event which no one doubts. The one thing Hunt did for the book of Mormon (if we are right to suppose a human and fraudulent authorship) was showing it was possible to write a narrative in the style of the King James Bible.
The Golden Pot (by Hoffmann) is instructive:
· Anselmus encounters Archivarius Lindhorst, the last archivist of Atlantis
· Archivarius Lindhorst is a guardian of ancient treasures (like Moroni)
· Significant events occur on the fall equinox
· Anselmus receives a gold record with writing and is asked to decipher it
And obviously, the entertainment fiction to this day has found no community of believers. Lindhorst remains to Hoffmann readers, as Red Book of Westmarch to Tolkien readers, a charming way to show an illusion of documentary, but Hoffmann readers and Tolkien readers don't take it for actual documentary evidence to this day.
When the fraud by Joseph Smith takes place, he can't fool people into believing something that they had not known and believing they had knewn it all along, that it is their normal historic memory, on the contrary, he uses sth which they had long suspected (in diverse learned comment from Throwgood and Penn to Worsley) and confirms it with a para-normal way of "knowing history".
This can be compared to how Edgar Cayce as a kind of psychic confirms the "Atlantic and pre-Atlantic" theories of Churchyard (Mu and Lemuria) as per his visions having actually taken place.
And similarily, in 1717, some people get convinced that King Solomon and Hiram Abbiff had founded a secret society to explain to a few select enlightened people that different religions all mean the same thing ... but they did not get convinced of having read it in the Bible, or in Biblical history, or in Livy, but of this having been kept alive by a secret society - another paranormal way of "knowing history".
You still have no single example of made up entertainment becoming believed as normally known history, as a war taking place so many decades or centuries before that other event, known very baldly (without supporting epics or tragedies) as "return of the Heraclids" or as a founder of the city you knew and the history of which you knew.
Let's say you live in NYC. How likely is it Adriaen Block and Cornelis Jacobsz are made up fictions? Or you live in Philadelphia, is William Penn taken from a novel by Tolkien or Hoffmann? As this is fairly recent history, you may have documents and artefacts from the time to back it up, but if this were lost, would this make Block, Jacobsz and Penn into mythology? That's what you need to consider when you take into account Romulus in Livy. Yeah, I know you want to beginning of March to get to him, but I'm going a bit in advance ...
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Feb 17, 7:29 PM (5 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
No, Hans, you've going off on pedantic trivia that is totally irrelevant and totally missing the important lesson. It doesn't make any difference whatsoever if any of Gilbert's, Hoffmann's, Spaulding's great, .... great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, 3rd cousins twice removed or other relatives became Mormons are not. The point is that a con-man and false prophet named Joseph Smith took works of fiction, speculatory histories about the Native Americans and just made up stories about fictional characters, battles and entire cities that supposedly existed thousands of years ago in the Americas and convinced a lot of people, including illiterate people that did not know anything about Spaulding, etc. that the stories were true. Then, there are millions more that are just born into Mormonism. They believe the lies because their parents did. Today millions believe these lies in the Mormon churches and spread them through their evangelism projects. In other cases, people like Reagan confused movie plots and novels and thought that they were history, and there's a lot of Americans that still admire Reagan and believe what is in his speeches. There are millions of Americans that actually believe that Columbus proved that the Earth was round and that he landed in what is now the United States. There are people that believe that "The Force" exists. They knew nothing about Eastern religions until they saw Star Wars. We have millions of Americans that believe that false prophets like Kat Kerr regularly go to Heaven and see Jesus and theme parks there. There is a large portion of the population that are gullible and believe almost anything. Our societies are full of urban myths and disinformation, and it's always been that way. People tell stories and some of the gullible believe they're real and the lies spread. People don't need to know anything about ancient American history to become a Mormon by birth or through the actions of a charismatic con-artist like Joseph Smith. Not surprisingly, con-artists always manage to find and exploit the gullible.
In the comment section of Erika's video, I said that Romulus was probably a legend. It's possible that someone named Romulus was a founder of Rome, but it's not necessarily true. It could be a total fiction made up by a Roman leader or priest either for entertainment or power. We don't know, but once people were born into the story or were educated to believe it, it was believed. People always want to think that the founding of their cities and nations were special.
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.
Best,
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Fri, Feb 18, 7:37 AM (4 days ago)
to me
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.
"There are millions of Americans that actually believe that Columbus proved that the Earth was round and that he landed in what is now the United States."
Which is not about non-events, just a distorted account of actual events.
He and Magellan did prove you could sail around the Earth, against people who predicted that too far West storms would make that impossible, or that they could not sail all the way from Spain to Japan on provisions a caravell could take along and didn't know there was a landmass in between. And he did come to the Americas, there is just a confusion between the Americas and the US which is colloquially named "America".
"There are people that believe that "The Force" exists. They knew nothing about Eastern religions until they saw Star Wars."
They don't take Luke Skywalker's childhood on Tatooine as history, which is a case in my point. There is a vast difference between changing outlook due to a work of fiction and believing the work of fiction as history.
"We have millions of Americans that believe that false prophets like Kat Kerr regularly go to Heaven and see Jesus and theme parks there."
That is not properly speaking historical. It's allegedly prophetical. I have no clue who Kat Kerr is and therefore not whether he is a true or false prophet, but suspect the latter. Please note, the one series of events in Genesis we have from prophecy rather than history is the Six Day account.
"There is a large portion of the population that are gullible and believe almost anything."
Yeah, like Evolution. But even you don't believe the latter part of Homo erectus kept track when Neanderthals and Denisovans and Homo sapiens appeared and left us with an account. Scientific reconstruction is exactly the same level of non-historicity as prophecy - it's believing something about the past because of other factors than accounts left from the past.
"Our societies are full of urban myths and disinformation, and it's always been that way. People tell stories and some of the gullible believe they're real and the lies spread."
It's not a question between "told story" and believing sth "real" it is a question between made up entertainment and believing it is historic. It is also not a question about lies about history and believing the lies are true, it's, once again, between made up fictions and believing they are actual history. And the sample of urban legends I saw don't qualify as historic statements. Whether true or false.
"In the comment section of Erika's video, I said that Romulus was probably a legend. It's possible that someone named Romulus was a founder of Rome, but it's not necessarily true. It could be a total fiction made up by a Roman leader or priest either for entertainment or power"
No, it couldn't. Romulus' father was not "son of Jove and god of war" and Romulus was not received among the gods when disappearing. But neither of these are historic statements anyway, they are metahistoric.
The problem is, why would Rome forget its real founder? What you are saying is about as credible (apart from the real history being more recent and therefore better documented) as pretending Cuomo found virgin terrain in what is now New York City and Adriaen Block and Cornelis Jacobsz a fiction invented by some Calvinist pastor who wanted to get some Calvinist connexion with the city he settled in.
"We don't know, but once people were born into the story or were educated to believe it, it was believed. People always want to think that the founding of their cities and nations were special."
A founding of a city or a nation always is special. It's special enough to recall who did it and therefore to not replace him with characters of fiction.
"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."
There is a Xth C. manuscript of Caesar in Carolingian France. Are you saying we don't know Caesar wrote the Commentarii de Bello Gallico? This is exactly where I as a Classicist can give you the context you lack of what comparative evidence is needed in comparative cases. You said you have studied YEC for 40 + years. But I have studied a lot of other things, which have helped to prepare me for that debate during the same 40 + years.
"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."
Not the least. What he sincerely thought about Genesis 3 is what he sincerely thought about Genesis 50 : that it was part of a history handed down to him. That's the kind of fake you don't make with con-men. Sure "past history" is a thing they can and do fake, as freemasons and Joseph Smith prove. But no Mormon grows up thinking II Nephi was a chronicle Joseph Smith came across at the local library. The "information bottleneck" shows. Namely, by his belief that this "history" was first lost and then recovered by an angelic being showing Joseph Smith some golden plates with a funny writing on them.
What has traditionally been ascribed to "revelation" was the Six Days account, which is tradionally ascribed to Moses receiving it on Mount Sinai. The rest is history. As history, not revealed by vision or audition from heaven.
You are handicapped in this field, because you concentrated on YEC controversy and you explain "we don't have independent accounts for Genesis 3" without asking how many independent accounts we have for Hannibal, "we don't have a contemporary text" without asking how much contemporary text there is left for Hannibal, "we don't have a manuscript by Moses, since Dead Sea scrolls is more than 1000 years later" without asking why we accept Caesar, whose writings also are in a manuscript 1000 years after he wrote it.
Get an idea of what is acceptable evidence in Ancient History before you pretend to judge the one for Genesis 3 inacceptable.
I have the Classical Education that you so far sorely lack.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Fri, Feb 18, 8:06 PM (4 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
Again, your statements are totally irrelevant and don't support your invalid case to move the Talking Snake from the group of myths along with the Cyclops, Tiamat, and the sirens and into the history group with President Abraham Lincoln and Alexander the Great. You're not doing history, but instead you're trying to make an illegitimate exception for a Talking Snake story simply because you want to believe it and not because you actually have any evidence. Who cares what the "normal historic collective memory as Europeans" is? The only important issue is that Joseph Smith took ideas from early 19th century American society and deceived millions into believing that his stories were history. L. Ron Hubbard made similar myths in Scientology. Mohammad as well. Religious con-artists were common over history and that make up stories and gullible people believed it. As for Caesar, Hannibal and evolution, you'll have to wait. I'll deal with that later.
Best,
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat, Feb 19, 9:23 AM (3 days ago)
to me
You show a total incompetence in figuring out what is relevant when it comes to history.
Here is what we agree on : Joseph Smith was a con-man, and somehow (we disagree on how) we know Caesar and Hannibal were historic.
What we disagree on is where on these issues two other things are best sorted : 1) Genesis 2 - 14? - 50? with Snorre / Saxo and Livy book I; 2) Millions and billions of years "geology".
If you want to wait discussing on how we know Hannibal crossed the Alps, we can wait with the rest as well. Because how we know is crucial.
"Who cares what the "normal historic collective memory as Europeans" is?"
Apparently you do insofar as you are prepared to defend Hannibal's existence. I certainly do, because II Nephi is not normal historic collective memory of Mormons, it is paranormally reconstructed and recovered collective memory of a population only known of by the exact same paranormal recovery of it. Every Mormon who believes II Nephi ipso facto also believes Joseph Smith recovered this lost book on golden plates. In other words, while it is to him accepted as "historic fact" it is still not "normal historic collective memory" to him.
" to move the Talking Snake from the group of myths along with the Cyclops, Tiamat, and the sirens"
You have no Classic Education. Hence, you do not know why you place the sirens and the cyclops in "the same group" as Tiamat. Oh, if it's only because of paranormal and perhaps supernatural biology, that's not what myths are traditionally defined by.
Before we can fruitfully discuss where to place an item, we must discuss what constitutes the limit between the two groups.
Since 12 I have known a historically existant "mythology" (Babylonian, Greek, Celtic, Norse) can be dissected into two categories : "divine myths" (Tiamat, Kronos puking up the five offpsring he had swallowed, Lugos being god of the sun, Odin with two brothers treating Ymer as Enlil treated Tiamat); vs "heroic legend" (Gilgamesh and Sargon of Akkad, Hercules killing the Nemean lion with bare hands, Cuchullain killing his own son come to visit him with the Gae Bolg, Sigurd / Siegfried getting killed with complicity of his brother in law Gunnar / Günther before he in turn gets killed by his second brother in law Attila the Hun).
And since I studied Latin and Greek Epics and Tragedies at university, but also Livy, I have known that "heroic legend" has far closer ties to "history" than to "divine myths".
You seem unwilling to discuss this, you seem to take your own division between two groups for granted. As I said, you don't have a Classic Education, and it is sorely showing.
So, as you are so concentrated on con-men, I'll pose you two questions:
1) how do we know NYC started out as Nieuw Amsterdam in the 17th C. with Adriaen Block and Cornelis Jacobsz, that this story is not made up by a con-man?
2) if only one account and that one not contemporary survived and no artefacts survived in accessible form, would we still know it, or would it ipso facto become more reasonable to consider Adriaen Block and Cornelis Jacobsz as come from the composite imaginations of some conman?
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sat, Feb 19, 7:09 PM (3 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Again, I know exactly what you're trying to do and you're totally failing to convert the Talking Snake myth into history. You can put Tiamat, the Cyclops, Thor and the Talking Snake into any academic categories you want. They're all from the imaginations of human beings without any supporting historical evidence. Your diversions and tangents don't work. You need to spend more time on science and real history rather than Norse, Roman, Greek and Hebrew mythology.
People lie and make up stories all the time. According to these stories, Joseph Smith saw magical beings. Eve supposedly saw a magic being too, a Talking Snake. Supposedly, both Joseph Smith and Eve saw God. At least the 1830 U.S. Federal census and contemporary tax records show that Joseph Smith and other Mormons were real people. There's no evidence that Eve ever existed.
You seem to think that the accounts in Genesis 3 amazingly came down through totally unaltered oral and/or written traditions from Adam to Moses. Others might speculate that Moses saw Genesis 3 in a vision. Neither of you have a shred of evidence for your speculations - None. Now, the Mormons claim to have a number of eyewitnesses that saw the golden plates. I think that they're all liars. But at least the Mormons claim to have something that the Talking Snake story doesn't have; namely actual human beings with a supposed chain of custody. Joseph Smith and other Mormons are easily found in the 1830 U.S. Federal census and their tax records are available. Of course, the Mormons are big on tracing their ancestries. I'll deal more with the Talking Snake story when I discuss Alexander the Great in March.
Now you want to add yet another diversion away from the Talking Snake story and discuss the history of New Amsterdam., Fine. Add that to the list for 2023 and I'll discuss the evidence for some of my Dutch ancestors having been born and lived there.
Best,
Kevin
Re: Here is, first, the debate
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Feb 20, 7:35 AM (2 days ago)
to me
You are very eloquent as why you deny historicity to Genesis 3 or the Odyssey. Mormons believe II Nephi is historically true.
You are far less eloquent on why you believe Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander. After all, a few more people, but still people, believe these historically true.
You are also getting quite offensive with your "You need to spend more time" ... plus it's badly argued.
... "on science" - is irrelevant for history
... "and real history" - is my expertise, not yours
... "rather than Norse, Roman, Greek and Hebrew mythology" - and I have better expertise than you to know the difference. Or similarity.
You have so far shown prejudice and ignorance, and nothing but that./HGL
And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Feb 20, 7:51 AM (2 days ago)
to me
You are sabotaging the debate by using language calculated to make me angry, for nothing.
Here is another argument I missed in my haste:
"Joseph Smith and other Mormons are easily found in the 1830 U.S. Federal census and their tax records are available."
Good luck showing similmar records for Caesar, Alexander or Hannibal.
Yeah, that's exactly where Weibull is tolerably great for recent, but totally useless for ancient history./HGL
Re: And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Feb 20, 7:03 PM (2 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Wow. Three emails in 16 minutes full of diversions and tangents. Despite your claims of expertise, you still have not given me a shred of evidence for a Talking Snake. Nevertheless, I really do appreciate your enthusiasm. But you need to show some discipline and patience. When you raise new unsolicited topics, like New Amsterdam, you show your frustration and indicate that you really can't defend Genesis 3. So, you attempt to defend Genesis 3 by trying to demonstrate that other topics in actual history, such as Hannibal or New Amsterdam, supposedly have no better support or also have great uncertainties. This is the illegitimate "your claims are just as bad as mine" defense. That won't work. You remind me of the young-Earth creationist that I debated by email from 2007-2017;. He was a nice individual, but he kept moving from topic to topic once he was unable to answer my questions. So, just keep a list and in time (maybe during 2022-2026) we'll get to the various topics that you and I have brought up. I really do like you. You're brilliant, but you need to show more self-discipline and patience.
Nevertheless, I'll briefly respond to what you have said in the past three emails. If you have more arguments dealing directly with the Talking Snake, feel free to email me at any time. Otherwise, I want to concentrate on Alexander the Great and not deal with more diversions and distractions from you. You can then respond to Alexander the Great in March and we'll go from there.
No. I don't expect to find the tax or census records for Caesar, Alexander or Hannibal. The type of available contemporary evidence will obviously vary with the culture, the century and the technology. But, you should know that a great variety of contemporary evidence could exist for powerful people in the past that supplement or support much later written histories as I have mentioned. Rather than tax and census records for the ancient Greeks and Romans, there are clay tablets, inscriptions, various public records, etc. So depending on when and where the individual lived from the present to thousands of years ago that evidence might range from Hawaian birth records for President Obama, Joseph Smith's tax records to artifacts mentioning Alexander the Great. Certainly, not every person in history will have one from each category of the available types of contemporary evidence, but the key is to find as much contemporary evidence as possible to confirm any later written histories that may exist. We'll talk more about that with Alexander the Great.
You talk as though Moses and Adam actually existed and have valid genealogies. You'll eventually have to provide the evidence for that as well. Perhaps in 2025 or so. Add that to your list. Unlike Moses, I have DNA analyses from a total of 20,000+ 1st-8th cousins to supplement the claims from our family trees, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, tax records, tombstones, real estate records, wills, census records, etc. So, contrary to your beliefs, science is very relevant for verifying history. Certainly, there are huge gaps in my Dad's ancestry and my mom's ancestry can only be traced back so far. Also self-contradicting and groundless genealogies exist at genealogy websites and are not limited to the Bible. The ages in these internet genealogies, especially for individuals living 200 to 1000 years ago, are sometimes so ridiculous that parents were supposedly born after children or individuals had kids at very old ages or people lived well over 120 years. These genealogies have to be carefully checked for consistency and accuracy with diverse and independent public records and DNA evidence (science!). Nevertheless, it turns out that the records for my mom's Dutch ancestry going back to New Amsterdam are very complete and confirmed with diverse evidence. My cousins and I on this limb of our family trees have traced and documented our ancestors generation by generation back to New Amsterdam and I'll discuss that in more detail later. So, the science of DNA can either confirm or fail to support the various links in our family trees. The DNA of my relevant Dutch ancestors are located on my #2, 4 and 12 chromosomes. Moses, if he even existed, obviously never had access to this kind of information .More later. So, add the existence of New Amsterdam and the genealogy of Adam to Moses to your list.
So, unless you have some new evidence for the Talking Snake, please let me concentrate on my research on Alexander the Great. In time, we can get to the other topics that concern you.
Best as always
Kevin
Re: And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Feb 21, 6:35 AM (1 day ago)
to me
I'll get back to you tomorrow.
Or not.
Meanwhile, your claim to lead both what I can come along with and what you can come along with and your inability to get anywhere near fairness in the process is definitely annoying.
a proposal : get in a qualified person in the field of Ancient History
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Feb 21, 7:34 AM (1 day ago)
to gutsickgibbon, me, phillips
My own field was primarily Latin, after that Greek, not AH per se at all.
And I haven't got a MA, I studied up to phil. cand. level in Latin, never took the final exam, and continued to spread out.
Here is by contrast a really qualified guy:
David Phillips: Ph.D., Classical Studies, University of Michigan, 2000.
Shall we ask him to make the dialogue a trialogue (yeah, word doesn't exist, I know) either with him or with one of his present wellqualified students?
Hans Georg Lundahl
a proposal 2 : withdraw Hannibal from my case, I was unaware of Polybius
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Feb 21, 8:53 AM (1 day ago)
to gutsickgibbon, me, phillips
I am somewhat confused to my studies history right now, why I have (as per my Academic papers in 2003 and following) "50 p." (Swedish system), namely 1 year and half of one term, when I was back at Classical Institution the years 90 - 91, 91 - 92 and part of 92 - 93 (half of Autumn term 92), and studied Greek and took just one year and half a term Greek. I certainly took German as well, but that was parallel to first year Greek, and if in second year I had only taken 10 points, I would have not gained access to study loan for the beginning third year. Perhaps simply so much remaining Latin exams to catch up on ... or perhaps, some exams were validated during second year and later withdrawn after I had lost the study loan in 93.
But the fact is, the course which would have included Polybius was not among those I took.
It is an excuse, but absolutely no justification of my previous statement that our first source for Hannibal is Livy.
A better case would be Pyrrhus or Brennus. Our first source to Pyrrhic war but also Battle of Allia is Polybius. He can't have become aware of Roman history prior to 171 BC and the battle of Allia was in 390 BC. 219 years is as if I were right now writing down the first history preserved to some hypothetic future about events in the Napoleonic wars, like in 1803.
By contrast, if I counted correctly, Polybius was 17 when Hannibal died, purportedly at least by suicide.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Feb 21, 9:44 AM (1 day ago)
to me
You do not teach discipline and patience to a man who has got too much sugar before going to bed, woke up before 4:20, did not catch up sufficient sleep before 8:30. You stop saying things that annoy the person, like being over patronising. And by misrepresenting the logic of things.
"So, you attempt to defend Genesis 3 by trying to demonstrate that other topics in actual history, such as Hannibal or New Amsterdam, supposedly have no better support or also have great uncertainties."
Not what I actually said, as to great uncertainties.
"This is the illegitimate 'your claims are just as bad as mine' defense."
No, it's not. First, I take New Amsterdam (now with Hannibal) and - no longer Hannibal, but Pyrrhus or Brennus - as a thing we reasonably are certain of. Then I state two more things:
1) this certainty depends on things which we have more of now than we would have if the history were ancient; and even now on narrative from sources we can no longer cross examine - in this case dead relatives of yours;
2) and to some examples, this narrows down to only narrative by non-contemporaries, as said, Hannibal struck from this specific list, replaced by Pyrrhus and Brennus, and Alexander still there.
My point is, even so the reasonable certainty is still there.
"He was a nice individual, but he kept moving from topic to topic once he was unable to answer my questions."
He did not keep a record of your exchange, neither did you, at least not shown on your site. I suspect he tried to give parallel cases to some of the questionings of his case that you brought up.
"No. I don't expect to find the tax or census records for Caesar, Alexander or Hannibal. The type of available contemporary evidence will obviously vary with the culture, the century and the technology."
And for some, the evidence that is contemporary survives only in copies and citations and resumés that are later. P R E C I S E L Y my point.
"artifacts mentioning Alexander the Great."
Coins are contemporary (as far as I checked), but coins are not specific enough in narrative to even evaluate whether it was a man or a fake god. As they overlap in his case (as reasonably known) I should formulate the opposition as a man or just a fake god.
The statue we have is a marble copy from c. 100 BC (from not so fresh memory) and the mosaic (from memory directly to our debate) is from c. 100 BC.
This leaves us with the narrative, and this narrative as it survives to us being second hand and in a text that is not contemporary (Diodorus Siculus, since narratives by his generals are stated as lost).
And here is the parallel. We have no free standing text by Adam, and yet that is the arguable source for Moses, via Abraham. Moses, like Diodorus for Alexander, like Polybius for Brennus, like Homer for Troy and return of Ulysses, is giving the earliest version surviving to us.
"You talk as though Moses and Adam actually existed and have valid genealogies. You'll eventually have to provide the evidence for that as well"
The earliest known audience did not take them for fiction.
That is the characteristic differentiating them from The Golden Ass, Satyricon, Menaechmi. Or Spiderman.
It is also about things which, if true, could have been handed down, and had no even purported need for a special revelation to get known. That distinguishes them from Tiamat (or for that matter the Six Days) and from II Nephi, where the historic continuity is clearly broken between Book of Moroni ... "the last of the books that make up the Book of Mormon. According to the text it was written by the prophet Moroni sometime between 400 and 421." ... and the purported or for all I care even real (but if so demonic) golden plates.
"Certainly, there are huge gaps in my Dad's ancestry and my mom's ancestry can only be traced back so far."
But the idea that one of his ancestors not only was born in what is now New York but also while this was New Amsterdam is based on narrative from back then, and unless you took a look at parish records or such (which is technically possibly since Early Modern times in European countries and dependences, you could have done that), depends on lore in your family.
Like Polybius depended on Roman families for Pyrrhic war and even more for Brennus.
"Nevertheless, it turns out that the records for my mom's Dutch ancestry going back to New Amsterdam are very complete and confirmed with diverse evidence. My cousins and I on this limb of our family trees have traced and documented our ancestors generation by generation back to New Amsterdam and I'll discuss that in more detail later."
Fine. Probably by records of the named type. Not available for Ancient History.
"So, the science of DNA can either confirm or fail to support the various links in our family trees. The DNA of my relevant Dutch ancestors are located on my #2, 4 and 12 chromosomes. Moses, if he even existed, obviously never had access to this kind of information"
Dutch genes exist independently on whether New Amsterdam existed or not. Your genealogy was known before your chromosomes were.
"The ages in these internet genealogies, especially for individuals living 200 to 1000 years ago, are sometimes so ridiculous that parents were supposedly born after children or individuals had kids at very old ages or people lived well over 120 years."
I'm not sure where you find them - perhaps on Mormon's site, since they place Odin at c. 200 AD. Adding "of Asgard" - he should be placed in 1st C. BC as per Snorre. But if one goes to wikipedian articles of historic people, they are usually accurate in genealogic information as far as I have so far found.
The observation doesn't make genealogy a non-certainty up to the existence of modern means.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 21, 7:44 PM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
I hope that you get some needed rest. I love sugar too, especially chocolate. However, I have high blood sugar (not diabetic yet) and I should watch how much sugar I eat.
I appreciate your honesty about Hannibal. Again, we can discuss Hannibal later, if you wish. I don't understand the Swedish academic system that you mentioned in your previous email, but for now, it probably isn't critical. I hope that you can eventually finish your degree.
Again, we're getting off on the New Amsterdam/genealogy topic. Yet, I confess, I find it far more interesting than the Alexander the Great topic that I should be working on. As we can discuss later, the parish, marriage, real estate transactions, etc. records of my mom's Dutch ancestors are originals. The originals are often photocopied and the photocopies are released to the public. Depending on state regulations, people might also be able to personally inspect the originals if they're willing to travel to the archives. So, they're not handwritten copies of copies of copies of copies, etc. like the Medieval manuscripts. We are fortunate in the US not to have had extensive wars and many of our original records going back to the 17th century still exist.
You say: "Dutch genes exist independently on whether New Amsterdam existed or not. Your genealogy was known before your chromosomes were." Certainly, there was a good document trail hidden in various U.S. state and other archives before my cousins and I had our DNA analyzed and compared. However, the DNA was absolutely essential in allowing us to identify each other, compare our family trees, track down the right family documentation and it was an important confirmation that our documentation as a whole was correct. The point is, the DNA along with the documentation actually confirmed that these DNA sequences in our bodies were once in our ancestors in New Amsterdam. DNA analyses are also absolutely essential in confirming biological relationships that may not be correct on birth or adoption certificates. For example, there were rumors in my family going back over 100 years ago that my great aunt cheated on her husband and got pregnant from the farm hand. By checking the DNA of the descendants of the resulting child and the descendants of the husband, we confirmed that the dreadful rumor was false and that the husband was the father. As another example, I got a DNA match with an individual named Madeline. After checking her family tree and some documentation, I discovered that Madeline's great, great grandmother Dorothy supposedly married a Henke. After checking other documentation and most of all comparing the amount of matching DNA for Madeline and me, it was obvious that Dorothy was not an in-law of my Henke family, but my great grandfather Henke's older sister. I won't discuss it, but I think I know why Dorothy lied about the identities of her parents. So, both contemporary documentation and DNA are important in confirming genealogical relationships.
We may not be able to cross-examine the dead, but for individuals back to about the 17th century we can compare their original documents for consistency and get DNA matches from their other descendants. This is suitable forensic evidence. I accept that. You can't do that with the Genesis genealogies. You have no contemporary evidence of any kind that Moses even existed. Yes, there's no doubt that the ancient Hebrews and modern Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians sincerely believe that Moses existed, or as you say "the earliest known audience" believed in them. But, so what? What ancient people sincerely believed about people or events that supposedly occurred thousands of years before them is no evidence that their beliefs were real or their long held traditions were accurate history. People always want their ancestors to be great heroes that overcame great challenges possibly with the help of their gods, so they make up stories. As I've stated before, both modern and ancient people had all kinds of erroneous beliefs and long-held myths. We actually have to find some sort of contemporary evidence for Moses or Adam. Otherwise, the opinions of the "earlier known audience" are groundless and worthless speculation. This is especially true when the traditional beliefs involve magical creatures, like a Talking Snake. Again, both Eve and Joseph Smith claim to have seen magical creatures, where's the forensic evidence that we should believe either of these stories? At least, we know that Joseph Smith existed, we have no evidence whatsoever for Eve. A million sincere believers in the ancient Middle East can be absolutely wrong. Now, if we were to find some ancient contemporary tablet that indicated that Moses and several hundred thousand Israelites passed through Succoth, then great. We have evidence that Moses lived and he was a leader of the ancient Israelites. We can then take other statements in Exodus more seriously, like we do for 2 Kings. But, right now, you don't have any evidence for Adam or Moses, and just because people in the 1st century AD or some other early known audience believed that they were real, there is no reason at all that they actually existed.
At the time of my ten year discussion, the individual and I had no agreement to make our emails public. So, I'll keep them private. Because you weren't involved in our exchange, I've now changed my policy and I'm willing to release our emails to the public as I state on my website but only if you are willing. Obviously, I would delete your email address to protect your privacy, but I would expect that nothing else would be deleted and nothing inserted. All emails, no matter how brief and trivial, must be included. No additional commentaries should be added to the collection without the other knowing. Just all of the complete raw emails without your email address. Nevertheless, I don't think that very many people will be interested in wading through what could end up as thousands of pages of unedited emails.
Best
Kevin
Re: a proposal : get in a qualified person in the field of Ancient History
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 21, 7:45 PM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
No. Unless Dr. Phillips is an expert on the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 or has good evidence that the Talking Snake is actually Greek mythology, I have no interest in having another individual possibly provide more tangents and diversions. However, when we discuss Alexander the Great, if you need his help, feel free to consult with him and cite any relevant publications that he may have on the historical record of Alexander the Great.
Kevin
Re: And I missed the 1830 Tax Record
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 21, 7:46 PM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
No, Hans. I'm just asking you to stay on topic. If you have some direct evidence for the existence of a Talking Snake, I welcome your comments at any time and next month we'll discuss Alexander the Great. I just don' t want you skipping from topic to topic and introducing new topics all at once. Stay on topic. You'll have your chance to comment on New Amsterdam, dinosaurs, Hannibal etc. in the upcoming years, but not all once. Be patient.
Kevin
This Weekend
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 21, 8:37 PM (23 hours ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I normally compose my emails during the day and send them out after 6pm Eastern time.
I'm not going to email you from Thursday February 24, 6:00 pm Eastern US time to Monday, February 28, 6pm Eastern time. This will give you a quiet weekend to get some needed rest and allow me to make some needed progress on investigating Alexander the Great. If you email me on Thursday, I'll respond after 6pm on Monday, my time. Sound Ok?
Take care
Kevin
Re: This Weekend
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Tue, Feb 22, 7:52 AM (6 days ago)
to me
Hello to you!
First, rest on a weekend is fine, but won't necessarily mean I get rest on Monday, and in fact sometimes the street I sleep is less quiet on the weekend.
Second, I have stated direct evidence, you have dismissed it, and I answer : then you'd have to dismiss lots more as well. The only way to get on with the discussion is discussing the lots more. So have you done, by introducing Joseph Smith. I haven't complained. Except that he is less apt a comparison than Alexander (or, not Hannibal but Brennus). I have no idea what could resolve this except a discussion of the lots more.
Third, I don't think my level is so bad I would regularly have to consult David Phillips at each step. I was inviting him mainly for an occasional correction (Hannibal was corrected bc I looked up the wiki article and Polybius resurfaced). And for the sake of your questions on my competence. I have not been studying at University since March 2004. I said for joke on my FB profile that I had "studied at Méjanne" - but that's a library - though a good one and one that has texts in Greek, like Photius Bibliographia. Hence my knowledge (on quite another debate) that if Photius did not per se believe angelic movers (of celestial bodies), it was still not a novel theory in the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, but one which had been discussed among Christians before Photius (who lived about 400 years earlier). I don't think completing a degree would add much to my competence, some bad habits (like sloppiness in references) are already too well set to change at a supplementary study. I am an essayist with some academic competence, not a full-blood academician.
Fourth, you are obviously welcome to mirror my publications or even to make a parallel documentation, and to link to it from your site, thanks for the clarification.
Fifth, enjoy the time off.
The one thing I'd like to answer even before you get time to see Alexander is, the data you can check with gene tests and documents are important for accuracy - not for your basic knowledge that your family's past in New Amsterdam is history rather than fiction. If you had had no "Dutch" genes, the ancestors from there could have been genetically atypical for Dutch ethnicity or they could have been your legal ancestors with some adoptions involved (though adoptions do tend to stay within ethnic group until recently). It would not have meant you had to reassess that ancestry as Spiderman and Menaechmi.
Let's make clear that when I argue historicity rather than fiction from "first known audience took it as history" this does not mean necessarily complete accuracy. Was there a Battle at Ravenna at which Theoderic of Verona beat Ermaneric? Yes and no. There were two battles of Ravenna, Ermaneric was involved 100 years earlier than Theoderic. But the Battle of Ravenna is not a role playing game that Theoderic and Ermaneric played around a drink of wine. Battles in real historic fact is what gives battles in legend.
A historic account can be challenged - if there is specific reason for it. But the fact that fictions and frauds exist is as it happens not a specific reason.
Hans Georg Lundahl
To think about before Alexander
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Feb 22, 2022, 8:51 AM (6 days ago)
to me
Please wait with the answer to when you are prepared to bring on Alexander the Great.
"We may not be able to cross-examine the dead, but for individuals back to about the 17th century we can compare their original documents for consistency and get DNA matches from their other descendants."
Yes. But even that involves narrative from the past.
"This is suitable forensic evidence. I accept that."
For most of the past, you can't do that.
"You can't do that with the Genesis genealogies. You have no contemporary evidence of any kind that Moses even existed."
I have no contemporary evidence as you define it Julius Caesar existed. OK, coins, so Pallas Athena and Harry Potter exist ....
"Yes, there's no doubt that the ancient Hebrews and modern Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians sincerely believe that Moses existed, or as you say "the earliest known audience" believed in them."
The main thing for the discussion is:
* ancient Hebrews
* and no earlier known audience for whom Moses would have been known if real but was denied.
The criterion is earli-EST KNOWN, not just an earl-Y, and also not a hypothetical earli-ER but UNKNOWN.
"But, so what? What ancient people sincerely believed about people or events that supposedly occurred thousands of years before them is no evidence that their beliefs were real or their long held traditions were accurate history."
For "accurate" you have a point. But for history vs fiction, not so.
"People always want their ancestors to be great heroes that overcame great challenges possibly with the help of their gods, so they make up stories."
You have given no example that I find convincing. Your principle would involve Alexander being suspect of fictionality bc battle of Issos was a great challenge overcome, and with no contemporary evidence.
"As I've stated before, both modern and ancient people had all kinds of erroneous beliefs and long-held myths."
How many of these clearly involve taking fiction for normally transmitted history?
"We actually have to find some sort of contemporary evidence for Moses or Adam. Otherwise, the opinions of the "earlier known audience" are groundless and worthless speculation."
I did not say "earli-ER known" but "earli-EST known".
"This is especially true when the traditional beliefs involve magical creatures, like a Talking Snake."
I thought you claimed to be an agnostic. As such, you have no ground to single out stories that if true would need either divine or angelic, and for angelic either good or fallen intervention to work. Please note, a cultural preference shared with the Atheists you claim not to be one of, is not a valid ground.
"Again, both Eve and Joseph Smith claim to have seen magical creatures, where's the forensic evidence that we should believe either of these stories?"
We do not have forensic evidence for the battle of Issus. Or even Waterloo.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/archaeologists-to-unearth-ancient-town-of-issus.html
"Die offizielle Website der Gemeinde Erzin vertritt die Auffassung, dass die antike Stadt Issos auf dem Kreisgebiet belegen ist 4. Ein langes Aquädukt mit rund hundert erhaltenen Bogen durchquert die Ebene und endet an einem Standort 7 km westlich der Stadt. Dieser Fundort hat durch die intensive Bodenbearbeitung über Jahre hinweg schwere Beschädigungen der oberflächennahen archäologischen Zeugnisse erfahren. Es handelt sich zweifellos nicht um Issus, das sich am Meer 5 oder unter Berücksichtigung der Anschwemmungen seit der Antike in einiger Entfernung von der Küste befinden müsste, aber die hier gefundenen Zeugnisse finden sich auf mindestens 40 m Höhe."
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzin
"At least, we know that Joseph Smith existed, we have no evidence whatsoever for Eve."
Or for Brennus? Or Alexander?
"A million sincere believers in the ancient Middle East can be absolutely wrong."
About their religion, granted. About claims of recently diclosed much more ancient history, or secret societies reaching back long in time, equally granted. But about claims of what seem to them normally transmitted history, not so.
How come a million sincere believers in your approach to history can't be wrong?
"Now, if we were to find some ancient contemporary tablet that indicated that Moses and several hundred thousand Israelites passed through Succoth, then great. We have evidence that Moses lived and he was a leader of the ancient Israelites. We can then take other statements in Exodus more seriously, like we do for 2 Kings."
We have no ancient contemporary tablet that indicates Alexander invaded Babylon, as far as you have so far presented.
You mentioned a Babylonian account, I suppose this would be by Berossos. We cannot prove he wasn't born after Alexander died, and only parts of his Histories are preserved.
"BEROSSUS, in the first book of his history of Babylonia, informs us that he lived in the age of Alexander the son of Philip. And he mentions that there were written accounts, preserved at Babylon with the greatest care, comprehending a period of above fifteen myriads of years: and that these writings contained histories of the heaven and of the sea; of the birth of mankind; and of the kings, and of the memorable actions which they had achieved."
https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/af/af02.htm
In the first book? Doesn't sound like he was telling the battle of Issus, more like giving an intro to himself. And stating Babylonians had 150 000 years of written history. This is insufficient to show what the situation of Alexander was. And the words are not by him, but by Alexander Polyhistor, who lived c. 100 to c. 40 BC. No doubt Alexander Polyhistor may have cited Berossus on that too, but on your principle, a citation by Alexander Polyhistor is insufficient, since not contemporary.
"But, right now, you don't have any evidence for Adam or Moses, and just because people in the 1st century AD or some other early known audience believed that they were real, there is no reason at all that they actually existed."
Your ancestors in New Amsterdam arguably believed Calvin was a real person ... now, we arguably do have real evidence from Genève, but what if that were gone?
How long after an event is past and participants are dead can the now available evidence reach and the evidence still be good?
How far from the ideals of forensic evidence can history go and still not be myth?
Hans Georg Lundahl
PS, I wanted to schedule sending time to beginning of March, but that is a premium feature, so I send it now .../HGL
Re: This Weekend
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Feb 22, 2022, 12:12 PM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Feb 22, 2022, 12:12 PM (6 days ago)
Hi Hans
[personal comments deleted]
I think it's important to have a narrow topic in depth at one time. If we're discussing a wide variety of topics at once, such as: Joseph Smith, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, etc. we're more likely to make mistakes and not catch the other's mistakes.
I will spend this weekend concentrating on Alexander the Great. Otherwise, my wife and I have a very hectic life. My daughter needs a lot of support. We have the grandkids after school, I drive my son to work at 10:30 pm on certain days. Walking the dogs 5 km per day. I'm researching a book on the New Testament, etc. It's certainly not as bad as your situation, but still it doesn't give me much spare time.
I have detected no evidence of adoptions or other irregularities in the Dutch branch of my family tree. The DNA analyses for my cousins and I are consistent with our family trees for every generation going back to New Amsterdam. As I mentioned in one of my last emails, both the DNA and the documentation detected an inconsistency in Dorothy Henke's claims about her parents. So other branches of my family tree are not as simple.
I now see from your second email from today that you want me to wait until next week before replying. That's fine. This is my last email until next week.
Have a good rest of the week and weekend.
Kevin
This Week
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
7:44 PM February 28 2022
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
I hope that you are doing well.
I will probably send my report on Alexander the Great and the Talking Snake to you tomorrow evening or maybe Wednesday evening my time (Easten US). If you decide to respond, I would like you to take two or even more weeks and construct an essay that is well referenced, coherent and thought out. Certainly, respond to my comments and certainly feel free to check my references to make sure that I've properly cited them. I expect you to use at least some peer-reviewed references and not just Wikipedia. I also don't want to watch videos. I only want to see written references in your response. Unfortunately, I'm only literate in English and I don't trust computer translators, so your references will have to be in English if you want me to be able to read them. I apologize for my language limitations. Also, as stated on my website, you're going to have to track down the references that I use and get your own copies. I will not violate copyright restrictions by sending you copies.
I really want you to construct a good response, as if you were submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. Also, to make sure that you're not distracted, I will not email you until you finish your response and I ask that you not distract yourself by sending me emails while you're working on your response. I'll have more to say about this when I send my report.
Sincerely
Kevin
Hans-Georg Lundahl
4:41 AM (3 hours ago), March 1, 2022
to me
I'm fairly fine with this, but if I give a reference in French, German, Latin, will you trust my translation for the quote?
Hans Georg Lundahl
PS - a lack of an actual paper stating that Berossus did not survive to us as to battle of Issos will not stop me from using it./HGL
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
8:24 AM (5 minutes ago) March 1, 2022
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
If you could just quote the French, German, Latin, etc. from the reference with your translation that would be great.
If a work is lost, such as Berossus or Papias, just cite the source that quoted the work (Eusebius, Syncellus, etc.) and briefly remind me that the original author's work is lost. I tend to overreference my statements. For example, if I write: "Conservative Christians generally believe that the Apostle John wrote the Gospel of John", I would still cite a conservative reference or two to back up what most people consider obvious. I recognize that what I find obvious, the reader may not.
I have others needing me to help them with some projects and paper reviews. If you could wait to get back to me with your response and any other emails until March 15 or even later, that would be great . If you get done early, please just wait until March 15 before responding. That would give me a couple of weeks to catch up on some other urgent projects that people want me to work on and that will leave you undisturbed to work on your response and deal with any other issues.
Thanks,
Kevin
Re: This Week
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Tue, Mar 1, 10:28 AM (1 day ago)
to me
There are however Conservative Christians who think that the Apostle John was not one of the Twelve, when we talk of the Gospeller.
THE great reference being:
TH n°010 L'ÉNIGME DU DISCIPLE QUE JÉSUS AIMAIT, Jean COLSON
EAN/ISBN : 9782701000442, Nb de pages : 128 p, Année : 1969
https://www.editions-beauchesne.com/product_info.php?products_id=353
Long story short, the gospeller arguably was a Cohen (could host the Mother of God from Good Friday on, so arguably had a house in Jerusalem, was known to the Priests, while not one of the Twelve - absence of Eucharistic institution - was nevertheless present at the last Seder, and memorised the speech about the Holy Ghost), the beloved disciple doesn't rhyme too well with being one of the Boanerges whose mother asked about favours and who were going to die martyrs both of them.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: This Week
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 1, 11:04 AM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
I agree. Here in the US, fundamentalist Protestant Christians insist that John the son of Zebedee was an apostle and that he must have written the Gospel of John, Revelation, and 1-3 John. They think that only the 11 apostles had permission from God to write the New Testament. That's exactly why it's important to include references for statements that many would think was obvious. See Hodge (2008). You can argue that with them if you wish. Now, I'll get back to my report.
Hodge, B., 2008, A Look at the Canon: How Do We Know that 66 Books of the Bible are from God?: Answers in Depth, v. 3, pp. 1-12, https://answersingenesis.org/the-word-of-god/a-look-at-the-canon/.
Best Kevin
Re: This Week
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Tue, Mar 1, 1:54 PM (1 day ago)
to me
John the Son of Zebedee was an apostle, one of the twelve apostles. Like his brother.
"They think that only the 11 apostles had permission from God to write the New Testament."
They can't, since Sts Paul, Marc and Luke weren't among them, and according to many not St James of the Epistle either.
However, the 12 Apostles were not the only set known as Apostles, we also consider the 72 Disciples as sometimes also known as Apostles. Arguably St. John the Beloved, the Gospeller, was among these as well as being a Cohen.
Since these guys think the Bible has "66 books" they get the answer to the question wrong. If they went by the local or regional Councils of Carthage and Rome (between Nicaea I and Constantinople I) and their confirmation by Trent, they would get "72 books, or 73 if Baruch is counted separately from Jeremiah" and "as the Church, relying on Her tradition, tells us".
The mistake about what John wrote the Johannine books doesn't change it is by the disciple who witnessed the Crucifixion and took God's Mother home, as being now Her stepson. And it is also not in the universal tradition of the Church, but contradicted, arguably, by some Church Fathers and martyrologies, as Fr. Colson dug up./HGL
Re: This Week
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 1, 2:08 PM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
Interesting perspective. You can debate this with the US fundamentalist Protestants because I don't agree with their position either. Because these fundamentalists are a strong political and religious force in the US, I encounter them all the time. They also dominate young-Earth creationism in the US. Meanwhile, I have to pick up my granddaughter from school and I want to get my essay to you in about 6 hours, so I won't email you further until I see your response in a couple of weeks. Then you can share more with me on the origin and inspiration of the New Testament, if you wish.
Best
Kevin
Alexander the Great and the Talking Snake of Genesis 3
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 1, 7:41 PM (1 day ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
My essay is attached as a pdf. Again, I would like you to take until at least March 15 to think about the issues as you respond. Certainly, respond to my comments and feel free to check my references to make sure that I've properly cited them. But, I also want you to thoroughly promote and defend, with the best evidence that you have, that the Talking Snake is just as historical or even more so than Alexander the Great. Please deal with all four hypotheses that I have raised for the Talking Snake story and why or why not you accept them. Feel free to add your own hypotheses. Don't just say that the story should be accepted because the earliest known Hebrews believed it. That doesn't work for hypothesis #4.
I also don't want you to chop my essay and make comments after every sentence or two as you often do in your responses. That's not acceptable. Your essay will eventually be released to the public at both of our websites, and no one would want to read through such a chopped up mess. Our readers would want a coherent, well thought out and well-referenced essay. So, I really want you to construct a good response, as if you were submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. After I see your response on March 15 or later, I'll either respond to it or we can go onto the next topic.
Feel free to simply acknowledge that you received this email and that you can open and read the pdf. However, otherwise I don't want you emailing me until March 15. I want you to concentrate undistracted on your response like I concentrated on mine over the last week. (Plus, I was working on my essay part time earlier than that.) So, two weeks or more seems appropriate for a good response. If you happen to finish your response early, please wait until March 15 to send it. I have other urgent commitments.
Finally, this essay is 100% my work. No one reviewed or coauthored it.
Thanks and Best to you,
Kevin
Attachments area
a pdf – for an email text of this document, see my email to Hans on March 2, 2022 at 8:23am
Re: Alexander the Great and the Talking Snake of Genesis 3
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
6:44 AM (15 hours ago)
to me
In response : I have read it through.
I won't make a pdf, and I don't know how to link to it from my blog, so unless you give permission to copy it, I can't show it from my blog - or you could make it into a link that ends in pdf, it would be included.
My response will be a blog post and I will link to Spencer McDaniel from it. When you provide a link that ends in .pdf, I will add that in a footnote.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Alexander the Great and the Talking Snake of Genesis 3
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
March 2, 2022, 8:24 AM (13 hours ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
I've included a copy of my essay below. Hope this helps. I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
Best
Kevin
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) and the Talking Snake of Genesis 3: History?
Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D.
March 1, 2022
BACKGROUND
My Standards on Evaluating History: Both Human and Natural
I recognize that past events really can’t be proven. Proof is more in the realm of mathematics rather than history or science. Nevertheless, I tend to rank claims about historical events as: 1) highly probable or beyond a reasonable doubt, 2) probable, 3) plausible, 4) unlikely or 5) highly unlikely (probably false or myth). My level of skepticism of events and individuals varies and would be classified in the categories of plausible, unlikely or highly unlikely. In these situations, I tend to ask myself: which is more probable that the event actually occurred or that someone just made it up?
As I previously stated, I do not automatically reject secular histories that were written centuries after the described events. However, until I receive good external confirmation, I tend to be skeptical of a given claim in an ancient history, such as Arrian’s The Anabasis of Alexander. Similarly, I tend to be skeptical of the historical claims in the Bible and other religious works until I get external confirmation. For a given claim in these documents, I want to see external evidence that is contemporary with the event or in the lifetime of the individual, such as inscriptions or documents. Depending on the circumstances, I might carefully give some credence to evidence from artifacts from a few decades after the event or the death of individual. For example, if an artist or writer knew the subject of his work and did a painting or sculpture within a few decades of the subject’s death that might be acceptable enough evidence.
Of course, a document, inscription or other written record must be accurately dated to ensure that it was written at the time of the event or when the subject lived. This is usually not easy. The verb tense or other indications in the text may indicate that it’s an official record that was written at or during the time of the event or the reign of a king. Paleography is usually not very accurate and requires other well-dated written documents as standards. With standards that have fixed dates, paleography can restrict the date of a document to within a century or perhaps a few decades (e.g., Orsini and Clarysse 2012 – New Testament paleography). Radiocarbon dating is a destructive process and often does not give precise enough results for historians anyway.
External evidence will vary with the century, culture and technology. In the past 200-300 years, potentially suitable external evidence to confirm the existence of an individual or an event could include tombstones, contemporary paintings and photographs, other artifacts and a variety of contemporary and official public documents, such as census records, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, tax records, real estate transactions, wills, etc. Because of the possibility that some of these records could be forged, multiple public records should be available to verify the existence of an individual or event. I fully recognize that these types of public records are either totally or nearly absent in ancient history, but multiple examples of these types of records are valuable for verifying the existence of an individual and his/her migrations in the US from the 17th to 21st centuries. As I stated earlier, family records (trees) and DNA evidence are also important in confirming these records.
In the remote past of centuries or thousands of years ago, the quality and quantity of data become far less common. However, for kings and famous military leaders, there still may be inscriptions in temples and other buildings; contemporary statues, paintings, coins and mosaics; and other evidence that demonstrates that they existed or were present at a specific location.
If multiple claims in an ancient document, such as Anabasis of Alexander or 2 Kings in the Bible, have been reasonably verified by external evidence, then my skepticism of the document is reduced and I’m more likely to think that other claims in these documents are plausible. For example, the inscriptions in the Annuals of Sennacherib confirms King Sennacherib of Assyria’s successful attack on Judah during the reign of King Hezekiah as described in 2 Kings 18:13 (https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/10/04/king-hezekiah-an-archaeological-biography/). Although this does not mean that I should automatically trust everything in 2 Kings, it does indicate that I would take other claims in 2 Kings more seriously. I could then look for additional evidence that either collaborates or fails to support other statements in 2 Kings. Thus, for an unsupported claim in Anabasis of Alexander or 2 Kings, I would still want additional external evidence before I would be willing to elevate my classification of the claim from plausible to probable or even beyond a reasonable doubt.
While one individual, Arrian, may have written The Anabasis of Alexander over a short period of time, the Bible was written by numerous authors over a much longer period of time. So, just because archeologists have discovered inscriptions that confirm the existence of Hezekiah and other kings mentioned in 2 Kings that does not mean that events and people mentioned in Exodus and Genesis can be trusted.
In geology, we are more fortunate than most archeologists and historians. If there are controversies about a basalt in an outcrop and as long as it’s not on the Moon, North Korea or some other inaccessible location, we can usually gather more samples, look at the rocks below and above and laterally from the basalt, run more tests, and perhaps answer the questions. Unless new discoveries are made, historians and archeologists are often stuck with what they’ve got.
I fully recognize that my standards for accepting claims about natural or human history are probably too stringent for the official procedures used by archeologists, historians and definitely for apologists of the Bible. But that’s too bad for them and I’m not going to lower my standards to appease their religious, political and academic agendas. My standards are high and based on the scientific method and those used by geologists. My standards work for natural history and I see no reason to lower them for human history. Yes, my approach is very conservative and would lead to more false negatives than other approaches; that is, I would have the tendency to be more skeptical of a lot of historical claims that historians, Christian apologists or archeologists would accept as “fact.” However, I think that this is the right approach to avoid accepting bad claims as “history.” I also recognize that very little human history will ever reach my standard of confidence, but I think quality evidence is better than quantity of claims. Most human history is never recorded anyway.
The Supernatural
I define a supernatural act or “magic” as a feat that violates the laws of chemistry and/or physics. Such a supernatural feat could also be called a miracle. For our everyday macroscopic world, the laws of physics would include Newtonian physics for the most part rather than Einsteinian Relativity. The laws of Chemistry are based on atomic theory. Obviously, as our knowledge of chemistry and physics grows, my views of what is supernatural, artificial and natural might change. However, even with the advent of Einsteinian physics, Newton’s laws still widely apply in our Universe.
I would define a supernatural being as an individual or thing that is capable of performing supernatural acts or has bodily structures that are inconsistent with biology. Examples would include gods, angels, the Talking Snake, fire-breathing dragons, and trees that produce fruit that can increase lifespans and mental abilities with one bite. Also, if a “prophet of God” actually and demonstrably turns lead into gold in violation of the laws of chemistry or levitates against the law of gravity, I would accept that as evidence of the supernatural, and I would have to recognize that this individual has real supernatural abilities. Unlike other secularists, I’m unlikely to move the goal posts to redefine a truly verified miracle, if it ever occurs, as part of a new still totally naturalistic worldview. So, from what we know about the intelligence and the inability of snakes and other reptiles to speak, if a snake starts having a conversation with me and other witnesses, I would have to change my skeptical views of Genesis 3. We also don’t expect the fruit of trees to immediately and substantially increase the mental abilities and lifespans of humans beings with just one bite. If science verifies that such trees exist, I would again have to reduce or even eliminate my skepticism of Genesis 3. Until I actually have definitive evidence of the supernatural, I will not say that miracles are impossible. However, I will automatically classify any supernatural claim as highly unlikely; this would include the Talking Snake of Genesis, as well as the claim that Romulus was born of a virgin. Again, I’m not saying that miracles and supernatural beings are impossible, but I’m saying that they’re highly unlikely until we get good evidence for them. I have yet to see any definitive evidence of any supernatural event or being, but I’m open-minded as long as my standards are met. I will not lower my standards for any religious, political or other agenda. I fully recognize that this is very difficult for my opponents to meet. However, that’s too bad for them. I won’t lower my standards to help them. They must find some way of meeting my standards if they want me to accept their claims. If they meet my standards, I will change my mind and admit that I’m wrong. Again, these are my standards and I don’t speak for other secularists.
In addition, there are claims of natural and not necessarily supernatural creatures where the evidence of their existence is either inadequate or nonexistent, such as Bigfoot, Nessie or the Cyclops. Claims for their existence are either based on personal testimony or ancient written records, which, so far, have been untrustworthy. Although their existence is naturally possible, we currently have no physical evidence of their existence. The presentation of a living example or a dead body that can be examined for authenticity, such as a Bigfoot, would be enough to demonstrate that they exist.
My Agnosticism
Although I don’t believe in Zeus, Thor and other specific gods, I am an agnostic about generic God(s). Although I don’t find the evidence totally convincing, I see some evidence in Intelligent Design arguments, which may indicate that one or more Gods could have created the Universe and possibly life on Earth. If these God(s) exist, I suspect that they are totally or largely Deistic. In other words, if they exist, they are probably impersonal. I see no evidence for answered prayers or an afterlife. However, if someone actually demonstrates that prayer can raise the dead or restore a severed limb, then I must recognize that one or more personal Divine Beings exist.
My willingness to consider the possibility of God(s) creating the Universe or life is not a god-of-the gaps (i.e., God did it!) fallacy because I’m only saying that it’s a possibility and not definite. Nevertheless, I see the origin and geological history of the Earth as being totally explained by natural processes without the need for supernatural intervention.
I am also a “weak” and not a “strong” agnostic. That is, I only speak for myself. I recognize that others may have had a definite vision or personal encounter with God or gods. I don’t know if their personal experiences with God or gods are real. I suspect that Kat Kerr is delusional or lying when she says that she has seen Jesus’ Candyland in Heaven.
As for the existence of other supernatural beings, such as fairies, a Talking Snake, Tiamat, witches with supernatural powers, sirens, fairies, ghosts, angels, and other magical creatures my doubts are even stronger. I see absolutely no evidence for them. Until a claim about them actually has some evidence, I won’t accept their existence. However, if someone eventually comes forward with evidence for demons, Talking Snakes, fairies, witches, and other supernatural beings, I’ll simply change my mind and admit that I’m wrong. Until at least some evidence that can be totally verified under strict scientific conditions, I will not accept their existence. Eyewitness testimonies under uncontrolled conditions are not good enough evidence for me. I totally recognize that this could mean that I end up rejecting valid claims for the existence of a supernatural event or being, but that’s not my problem. It’s the problem of those that advocate for their existence. I also fully recognize that believers in the supernatural will find my standards essentially impossible to meet or, as you have said, no one can locate and excavate the Garden of Eden. However, that’s your problem. You have the burden of evidence for claiming that supernatural beings exist and that supernatural events occur or have occurred. You will need to somehow produce evidence for a Talking Snake. Even if it’s essentially impossible for you to do so, I will not lower my standards.
INVESTIGATION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
My Proposal on Alexander the Great
My proposal or hypothesis for testing the existence of Alexander the Great is very conservative. I simply propose that Alexander the Great was:
1. a human being that lived in the 4th century BC and not a mythical or fictional being.
2. he was a military leader that had an extraordinary political effect over a wide region of at least the Middle East.
Again, I don’t expect to “prove” these statements, but only show that they are either probable or beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, as a scientist, I don’t claim ultimate proof. However, some claims are so well verified that I would identify them as demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt. If these two claims are demonstrated to be probable or even beyond a reasonable doubt, then I could look at other claims made about Alexander in the works of Arrian, Curtius Rufus, Plutarch, etc. and possibly test them with external evidence. I also fully recognize that my very conservative and cautious approach will at least initially overlook many of his detailed accomplishments and underestimate Alexander the Great’s influence in his society. But, I want to be slow and cautious.
McDaniel (2019)
McDaniel (2019) at https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/06/14/what-evidence-is-there-for-the-existence-of-alexander-the-great-quite-a-lot/ is a response to archskeptics that claim that Alexander the Great never existed at all. She presents some relevant evidence that Alexander the Great was an actual military leader and king, which is exactly what I want to demonstrate. If her claims actually had been thorough and totally reliable and if she had properly referenced her claims with peer-reviewed science journals, I could have just linked to her essay and declared that archeology effectively supplements the Roman histories and demonstrates my proposal to be probable or even beyond a reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, no one is perfect and I have found a number of errors and inadequacies in her article. First of all, it’s poorly referenced. Wikipedia links aren’t good enough. We don’t know if she got her statements from reliable sources or not. Thus, her claims need to be verified with other sources and even if she had referenced her claims, I would still have needed to check those references to make sure that she properly cited them. Furthermore, it’s possible that other researchers have proposed opposing and alternative explanations to her claims. Secondly, when I checked her claims, I found that she had made some errors. Now, I fully recognize, as she stated in her essay, that she could not discuss all of the evidence for the existence of Alexander the Great in a brief article. Yet, I found some important details about the artifacts and the life of Alexander the Great that she did not discuss, which I think deserve mentioning. Although I don’t see any need to comment on some of her claims, there are cases where I will further discuss the issues that she raises, correct her errors when I can, and present additional relevant information that she did not mention. Nevertheless, McDaniel (2019) made a good start and her essay is a valuable guide on where to start looking for contemporary evidence about the life of Alexander the Great.
Ancient Histories
McDaniel (2019) lists five ancient historians that produced works that discuss Alexander the Great, which are (various spellings): Diodorous Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Arrianos (Arrian), Plutarch, and Justin’s work based on an earlier work by Trogus. In her opinion, the works by Arrianos and Diodoros are most reliable. If it could be shown that these historians were independent of each other and if they had reliable sources, then we would have reason to place greater confidence in their claims even without any external evidence. Furthermore, if one author writes a positive biography on a leader and another writes a negative one, we might have more confidence if they both agree that the leader was involved in a battle at particular time and location. So, independent or competing written accounts can certainly improve the confidence that an event occurred or an individual actually existed. However, demonstrating that two accounts are truly independent is not easy unless they are well-dated records, such as any observations of a comet from 10th century China and central Europe.
Nevertheless, too often ancient authors fail to list their sources. Furthermore, they may be relying on each other or burrowing information from the same erroneous sources. So, in most cases, we will need external evidence to confirm their claims. Again, once several claims made by a particular historian have been confirmed by reliable external evidence, I can have greater, but not absolute, confidence in their other statements.
Although these five works were written centuries after the lifetime of Alexander the Great, they can still be used as guides to test their accuracy with archeology and other scientific results. For example, when Arrian says that Alexander the Great saw a lunar eclipse within the month of the Battle of Gaugamela, as discussed below, we could look for Babylonian tablets and use archeoastronomy calculations to confirm the time and date of the eclipse. Thus, statements in these histories might give us value clues on where to dig (sometimes literally) for more evidence about Alexander the Great.
At the same time, we have to be initially skeptical about written documents. As you know, any literate individual can write anything. Just because something is written down does not mean that it happened. As I’ve stated before, the history of the Mormon Church teaches us that it’s very possible for large numbers of people to believe in fabrications in a short period of time. I also see no reason to be superstitious and invoke demonic activity to explain the origin of the Mormon Golden Plates, especially when human lies and deception are adequate enough explanations. Thus, documents, like the book of Mormon, have the capability of deceiving thousands or even millions within a few decades after the fabrications. Certainly, claims in the literature must be verified with external evidence.
Contemporary Administrative Document from Bactria
This is a link that shows an administrative document, identified as sample C4, which states that it was written starting on 15 Sivan in the 7th year of “Alexandros” and then extending over the next three months. This date, which is June 8, 324 BC, is based on when Alexander ascended the throne in Babylon and not Macedonia (Naveh and Shaked 2006, pp. 199, 206). The document deals with the distribution of supplies. It is one of 30 administrative documents all written in Official Aramaic from the province of Bactria in central Asia. Some of the other documents in the collection mention Artaxerxes III, Artaxerxes V, Bessus, and Darius III. Naveh and Shaked (2006, pp. 15-19) discuss the paleography of this and the 29 related documents and the cities in Bactria where they might have been written. Naveh and Shaked (2006, p. 15) indicate that the Official Aramaic script is from the late Achaemenian period and into the time of Alexander the Great. Of the 30 documents, 29 are confirmed to be from the 4th century BC. The 30th document is fragmentary, but the writing suggests that it may be from the first half of the 5th century BC (Naveh and Shaked 2006, p. 16).
Document C4 by itself indicates that it was written in Bactria during the 7th year of the reign of “Alexandros” – a king with a Greek name. The paleography of C4 and associated documents confirms that they were written in the 4th century BC. This is an excellent example of a contemporary document.
Gaugamela Campaign and a Lunar Eclipse
Although they rely on the writings of Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius Rufus, and other ancient accounts to partially understand Alexander the Great’s route to Gaugamela and Arbela, Marciak et al. (2020a) is also a good example of a research team using archeological and other scientific evidence to provide specific dates for Alexander the Great’s campaigns when the accounts in the ancient histories of Arrian, Plutarch and others are inadequate and even contradictory. The second article by Marciak et al. (2020b) is an erratum for Marciak et al. (2020a). However, it only deals with some omitted affiliations of the authors and omission of their acknowledgements, and nothing serious.
In their investigation to determine the exact date for the Battle of Gaugamela, Marciak et al. (2020a, p. 537) state:
“The exact date of the Battle of Gaugamela has long been contentious because it cannot be unambiguously fixed based only on information proved by classical writers. Only two classical sources about the Battle of Gaugamela provide us with relatively detailed chronological references – Arrian and Plutarch. However, upon consideration, they turn out to contradict each other.”
So, Arrian, Plutarch and other ancient histories aren’t good enough by themselves to specifically date this battle. They need archeological and other scientific evidence to provide details and clear up contradictions.
Arrian (3.15.7) states that Alexander’s victory at the Battle of Gaugamela occurred in the same month as a near-total lunar eclipse (Marciak et al. 2020a, p. 538). To resolve the dating inconsistencies and contradictions in the works of Arrian and Plutarch, Marciak et al. (2020a, pp. 538-539) reviewed the dates of the events from two cuneiform tablets in the British Museum and results from the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries for that time (Hunger and Sachs 1988). In the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonians made daily astronomical observations and noted celestial events. Now, the two tablets are not ideal and were probably not contemporary with Alexander, but they were closer to the events than the ancient histories. Marcia et al. (2020a, p. 539) refer to the tablets and state:
“The tablets in question were definitely written after the described events (as their narrative continues until Seleucid times). The tablets refer to the battle as ‘raising the standard’ by Alexander (who is named ‘king of the world’) and date it to the 24th day of the sixth month (Ululu) in the fifth year of the reign of King Darius (III). This reference can be transferred into the modern Gregorian calendar as October 1, 331 BC. Furthermore, the tablets also record two other interesting events directly preceding the battle – an outbreak of panic in the camp of the (Persian) king on the eleventh day of the sixth month (Ululu) and a lunar eclipse on the thirteenth day of that month.” [reference numbers omitted]
Using the two Babylonian tablets and the Astronomical Diaries, Marciak et al. (2020a, pp. 538-539) were able to derive more precise and consistent dates than what could be derived from Arrian and Plutarch alone. Their results are September 18, 331 BC for the panic, which they think probably coincided with Alexander’s crossing of the Tigris River, the lunar eclipse was on September 20, 331 BC and the Battle of Gaugamela occurred on October 1, 331 BC. Marciak et al. (2020a, pp. 539-543) then correct and reconcile the accounts in Arrian and others with their results. In another study, Polcaro et al (2008) used an astronomy computer program to confirm that the lunar eclipse would have been visible in the region where Alexander the Great, his troops and his opponents were located shortly before the Battle of Gaugamela and that it would also have been observed by the Babylonian astronomers on the evening of September 20, 331 BC.
Babylonian Cuneiform Tablets
McDaniel (2019) mentions two other Babylonian cuneiform tablets associated with Alexander the Great: The Chronicle Concerning Alexander and Arabia and the Alexander Chronicle. According to McDaniel (2019), the tablets are contemporary and describe the last few years of the reign of Alexander the Great, including a description of Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela about one year after it happened.
However, the contents of the two tablets are not very well preserved and the conclusions are not as definitive as McDaniel (2019) claims. The content of the Chronicle Concerning Alexander and Arabia, also called BCHP 2 and BM 41080, is especially not very well preserved. https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/bchp-2-alexander-and-arabia-chronicle/#:~:text=The%20Babylonian%20Chronicle%20concerning%20Alexander,Macedonian%20king%20Alexander%20the%20Great
The reverse side of the tablet is not preserved at all and the above website admits:
“This fragment probably deals with the second entry of Alexander the Great into the city of Babylon in 323 BCE, but the condition of the tablet hardly allows firm conclusions.”
The contents of the Alexander Chronicle are more definitive. The Alexander Chronicle, also identified as ABC 8, BCHP 1 and BM 36304, clearly refers to Alexander and his troops and king Darius (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/bchp-1-alexander-chronicle/). Nevertheless, parts of the tablet are damaged and some details are difficult to follow.
Alexander’s Letter to the Chians
The letter from Alexander the Great to the people of Chios is an inscription on a limestone slab. It’s currently in a museum on the Greek island of Chios. McDaniel (2019) does not discuss this artifact. The inscription is in the present tense and refers to Alexander as the king (Heisserer 1973, p. 192). Heisserer (1973) discusses the dating of the slab. Some scholars think that the slab refers to events recorded by Arrian and should date to the late summer of 332 BC. Heisserer (1973, pp. 192-193) also uses Arrian and other ancient references, but disagrees. He thinks that it’s more consistent with Alexander’s attitude towards the city of Ephesos in 334 BC.
Certainly, Heisserer (1973) and his references depend on Arrian’s work. However, this is an example of where an artifact helps to confirm the claims in Arrian about Alexander. Heisserer (1973) also discusses some of the characteristics of the Greek lettering on the slab. So, potentially, the Greek vocabulary and paleography might also confirm the age of the slab. However, Heisserer (1973) and his colleagues seem confident that the slab dates from 334 to 332 BC and was from Alexander the Great.
Priene Inscription in the Temple of Athena Polias
McDaniel (2019) mentions the Priene inscription in the Athena Polias Temple. The inscription says that “King Alexander dedicated this temple to Athena Polis” ( https://www.livius.org/pictures/turkey/priene/priene-temple-of-athena-polias/priene-temple-of-athena-polias-alexander-inscription/ ). McDaniel (2019) states that the inscription dates to about 330 BC. However, other references state that its date is not that exact. The livius website linked above dates the inscription to 332-323 BC. Others have dated the inscription from 334 to 306 BC (Paganoni 2017). Sherwin-White (1985) is a researcher that thinks that the inscription was created after the death of Alexander during the reign of Lysimachus. Lysimachus lived from about 360 to 281 BC. That is, he lived during and long after the lifetime of Alexander the Great.
Contemporary Egyptian Inscriptions
McDaniel (2019) mentions the Egyptian hieroglyph showing Alexander the Great addressing the god Min in the Luxor Temple in Egypt. According to McDaniel (2019), the inscription dates to about 332 BC. Additionally, Bosch-Puche (2013) and Bosch-Puche and Moje (2015) lists numerous examples of contemporary Egyptian inscriptions referring to Alexander the Great during his reign. Dates for the inscriptions are often included. For example, Bosche-Puche and Moje (2015) list the dates of the 22 inscriptions. One inscription has an uncertain range of dates from 332-323 BC. The other 21 inscriptions tend to have dates that are quite specific and range from about 331 BC to 12 April – 11 May 327 BC.
Coins Minted during the Reign of Alexander the Great
McDaniel (2019) mentions that numerous coins were minted during the reign of Alexander the Great and after his death. Kontes (2000) further states that the posthumous minting of the coins continued for about two decades after Alexander died. Thousands of the coins still exist today (Kontes 2000).
McDaniel (2019), however, incorrectly states that the coins show Alexander’s face on them. Most experts think that the faces on the coins, such as those shown in the figures in McDaniel (2019), represent Hercules wearing a lion skin. The seated figure on the reverse side is Zeus (Kontes 2000; Gatzke 2021, pp. 98-99). Gatzke (2021) suggests reasons why Alexander the Great used the image of Hercules on his coins. Gatzke (2021, p. 103) concludes:
“Because Alexander’s extensive minting and distribution of the beardless Heracles-type had established it as the most recognizable and acceptable currency of the period from the eastern Mediterranean to India, it is no surprise that in the years following Alexander’s death, as his successors struggled for political dominance and control of his empire, they maintained this coinage. The widespread and recognizable coin type provided them with the appearance of economic and political continuity in an otherwise unstable new world.”
Scholars discovered that the minting patterns and other characteristics of the coins allowed them to distinguish early from later coins, establish a general chronology and determine where the coins were minted (Kontes 2000). Kontes (2000) further discusses how the patterns and scripts on the coins changed during the years of the reign of Alexander the Great and with the mint. Price (1991) presents further details on the characteristics of the coins. I also fully recognize that mythical beings, such as Hercules or Harry Potter, sometimes appear on coins. My point is - it’s often not the image on the coin that is important, but who had the power and wealth to issue the coins.
As discussed by Kontes (2000), Price (1991) and their references, there are certainly controversies over when Alexander began minting his coins during his reign, exactly when certain mints began to operate, and other details. However, they all agree that Alexander the Great had a large number of coins minted in his lifetime. Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. (2000, p. 342) states that Alexander the Great established at least 31 mints in his Empire between 334 and 323 BC.
Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. (2000) performed trace element analyses on silver coins minted in Macedonia during and after the reign of Alexander the Great. As a comparison, analyses were also done on two Babylonian coins. The analyses used energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), which has the advantages of being non-destructive of the coins and it can simultaneously and accurately measure low concentrations of trace elements that are common in silver coins (Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. 2000, p. 343). The concentrations of trace elements, especially bismuth and copper, are important in identifying the location where the silver was mined, in distinguishing the coins from different mints and it can also provide evidence in identifying posthumous coins (Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. 2000, pp. 346-348). Initially, the dates and minting locations of the coins were determined by numismatists Price, Le Rider and Troxwell. A bismuth to copper plot was able to distinguish the coins into two groups. The high bismuth group were mostly associated with the Amphipolis mint in Macedonia and 13 of the 14 posthumous coins formed as distinctly separate high bismuth and high copper subgroup (Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. 2000, pp. 346-347). The low bismuth group contained four coins from Amphipolis and two from Babylon. Kallithrakas-Kontos et al. 2000, p. 348) then conclude:
“For most of them [the coins] the [analytical] results agree with the archeological attribution of the coins. In cases, where there is ambiguity in the archeological characterization, the bismuth-copper data can be used as further evidence.”
I won’t go into further detail about the discussions in these various documents. If you’re interested, you can read them for yourselves. The point is, that science helps to confirm that numerous coins were minted in Macedonia and throughout Alexander’s empire during his lifetime, which further indicates that he was a real and wealthy leader with extensive power and influence. He was not just a local ruler in Greece.
Alexander Sarcophagus
McDaniel (2019) states:
“Another piece of archaeological evidence of Alexander the Great’s exploits is the famed Alexander Sarcophagus, a remarkably well-preserved Hellenistic marble sarcophagus from Sidon dating to the fourth century BC, within a few decades of Alexander the Great’s lifetime. The carvings on the sarcophagus depict Alexander the Great’s conquests.”
She further mentions that the Sarcophagus is currently located in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
McDaniel’s statements on the Alexander Sarcophagus are generally accurate and Heckel (2006) presents additional information on it. Heckel (2006, p. 385) states that the style of the artwork on the Sarcophagus dates to the last third of the 4th century or as McDaniel (2019) states “…within a few decades of Alexander the Great’s lifetime.”
Although the Sarcophagus is decorated with scenes involving Alexander the Great (Heckel 2006), it did not contain the body of Alexander. The ultimate fate of Alexander the Great’s body is unknown, although scholars like, Chugg (2002), have their convictions. The Sarcophagus gets its name from its artwork of Alexander the Great’s achievements.
Traditionally, most scholars thought that the sarcophagus was the resting place of Abdalonymus, who was installed as King of Sidon in late 333 or early 332 BC (Heckel 2006, p. 385). However, there are a number of controversies associated with Abdalonymus. First of all, we’re not certain if Alexander the Great himself or someone else installed Abdalonymus as king (Heckel 2006, p. 385). Secondly, Heckel (2006, pp. 386-388) is skeptical that Abdalonymus is represented in any of the artwork and that his body was placed in the Sarcophagus.
Tyre Land Bridge
McDaniel’s statements on the Tyre land bridge are brief and generally accurate. Marriner et al. (2007), Marriner et al. (2008) and Nir (1996) further discuss the geology of the land bridge, how Alexander and his troops probably constructed it, and how nature has modified it over time. Marriner et al. (2008) contains numerous radiocarbon dates, but none of them appear relevant to when Alexander the Great constructed the land bridge.
Conclusions about Alexander the Great
The ancient histories on Alexander the Great by Arrian, Plutarch, and others are extremely valuable. However, these histories cannot be taken at face value. Marciak et al. (2020a) and other researchers demonstrate that these histories are not infallible and that archeological and other scientific evidence is often required to supplement, correct and clarify their claims. The scientific data confirms that Alexander the Great had great influence over a wide region, including Greece, Central Asia and Egypt. The enormous number of coins minted in his name further demonstrate his wealth and economic power. The evidence overwhelming confirms my hypothesis on the existence of Alexander the Great and refutes any archskeptics that might say that he did not exist.
TALKING SNAKE IN GENESIS 3
Unlike the archeology and other evidence for the existence of Alexander the Great, there’s not a shred of external evidence for the existence of the Talking Snake in Genesis 3. Now, I’m not going to wade into the controversy about the authorship of the Pentateuch and the Documentary Hypothesis. Any proponent claiming that Genesis 3 is history would have to deal with that.
We simply don’t know who wrote Genesis 3 and when they wrote it. As I mentioned before, there are scraps of Genesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they don’t appear to include chapter 3. Now, several hypotheses could be proposed to explain the origin of the 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.
No doubt, other hypotheses could be proposed and you are certainly welcome to add to this list. From your email on February 14, 2022 at 7:27 am Eastern US time and again on February 21, 2022 at 9:44 am Eastern US time, you claim that Genesis 3 was passed down from Adam to Moses and to others. Thus, you seem to support Hypothesis #1 rather than #2-4. Until I see good evidence for #1-2, I think that #4 or maybe #3 are far more probable.
While Alexander the Great was just a normal human being, a Talking Snake would be a supernatural being and not an ordinary snake. That means that you have to demonstrate with positive evidence that a supernatural Talking Snake is even possible. I’m open to receiving any valid evidence that you may have in your upcoming response, but at this point, as I discussed above, I give the Talking Snake a low probability of existing. To be exact, I think it's safe to call the Talking Snake a myth until demonstrated otherwise.
Because there’s absolutely no evidence for the origin of the Talking Snake, Hypotheses #3 and #4 are consistent with reality unlike #1 and #2 that depend on groundless speculation about supernatural beings and visions. As I said earlier: which is more probable that someone made up a story that was later believed or that Genesis 3 is actual history? Furthermore, conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews would have a serious problem in choosing between Hypotheses #1 and #2. Yet, there’s a problem with consistency in Hypothesis #1. While advocates of Hypothesis #1 would have to admit that Genesis 1-2:14 came as a vision from God, why exclude Genesis 3 from the same set of visions? Why should any conservative Christian or Jew believe Hypothesis #1 rather than #2?
Even if you could ever demonstrate that Moses wrote about the Talking Snake story, you still would have to somehow demonstrate that Moses had access to accurate historical information about Genesis 3 that supposedly occurred thousands of years before he was born. Just saying as you do in your Tuesday February 22, 2022 email at 8:51 am US Eastern time that the earliest known audience believed that Moses existed is no evidence that Moses actually existed. The oldest claim that we have for Moses was still centuries after he supposedly lived. We don’t know if Moses and Exodus were originally a work of fiction, borrowed from other myths, obtained in “visions” by prophets, distorted history, or actually history. Considering the archeological work discussed in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), there’s no evidence of a mass Exodus from Egypt. The ancient Israelites were probably just Canaanites.
REFERENCES
Bosch-Puche, F. 2013. “The Egyptian Royal Titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, Two Ladies, Golden Horus, and Throne Names”: Journal of Egyptian Archeology, v. 99, pp. 131-154.
Bosch-Puche, F. and J. Moje. 2015. “Alexander the Great’s Name in Contemporary Demotic Sources”: Journal of Egyptian Archeology, v. 101, pp. 340-348.
Chugg, A. 2002. “The Sarcophagus of Alexander the Great?”: Greece & Rome, v. 49, n. 1, April, pp. 8-26.
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.
Gatzke, A.F. 2021. “Heracles, Alexander, and Hellenistic Coinage”: Acta Classica, LXIV, pp. 98-123.
Heckel, W. 2006. “Mazaeus, Callistthenes and the Alexander Sarcophagus”: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, v. 55, n. 4, pp. 385-396.
Heisserer, A.J. 1973. “Alexander’s Letter to the Chians: A Redating of SIG3 283”: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 2nd qtr, v. 22, n. 2, pp. 191-204.
Hunger, H. and A.J. Sachs. 1988. Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia: I: Diaries from 652 B.C. to 262 B.C.: Austrian Academy of Sciences: Vienna.
Kallithrakas-Kontes, N., A.A. Katsanos, and J. Tourastsoglou. 2000. “Trace Element Analysis of Alexander the Great’s Silver Tetradrachms Minted in Macedonia”: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research v. B 171, pp. 342-349.
Kontes, Z.S. 2000 “The Dating of the Coinage of Alexander the Great”: The Dating of the Coinage of Alexander the Great | Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology | Brown University (accessed February 27, 2022).
Marciak, M., M. Sobiech and T. Pirowski. 2020a. “Alexander the Great’s Route to Gaugamela and Arbela” Klio, v. 102, n. 2, pp. 536-559.
Marciak, M., M. Sobiech and T. Pirowski. 2020b. “Erratum: Alexander the Great’s Route to Gaugamela and Arbela” Klio, v. 103, n. 1, p. 408.
Marriner, N., C. Morhange, and S. Meulé. 2007. “Holocene Morphogenesis of Alexander the Great’s Isthmus at Tyre in Lebanon”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v. 104, n. 22, pp. 9218-9223.
Marriner, N., J.P. Goiran, and C. Morhange. 2008. “Alexander the Great’s Tombolos at Tyre and Alexandria, Eastern Mediterranean”, Geomorphology, v. 100, pp. 377-400.
McDaniel, S. 2019. “What Evidence is There for the Existence of Alexander the Great? Quite a Lot.” https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/06/14/what-evidence-is-there-for-the-existence-of-alexander-the-great-quite-a-lot/ (last accessed February 27, 2022).
Naveh, J. and Shaked, S. (eds.) 2006. The Khalili Collection: Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria (Fourth Century B.C.E.): The Khalili Family Trust: London, UK, 288pp.
Nir, Y. 1996. “The City of Tyre, Lebanon and Its Semi-Artificial Tombolo”, Geoarchaeology: An International Journal, v. 11, n. 3, pp. 235-250.
Orsini, P. and W. Clarysse. 2012. “Early New Testament Manuscripts and Their Dates”, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, v. 88, n. 4, pp. 443-474.
Paganoni, E. 2017. “Decreto di Priene in onore di Antigono figlio di Filippo” (in Italian, English abstract), Axon, v. 1, n. 2, December, pp. 103-110.
Polcaro, V.F., G.B. Valsecchi, and L. Verderame. 2008. “The Gaugamela Battle Eclipse: An Archaeoastronomical Analysis”: Mediterranean Archeology and Archaeometry: v. 8, n. 2, pp. 55-64.
Price, M.J. 1991. The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus: A British Museum Catalogue: Volume 1: Introduction and Catalogue: The Swiss Numismatic Society in Association with British Museum Press: Zurich and London, 509pp.
Sherwin-White, S.M. 1985. “Ancient Archives: The Edict of Alexander to Priene, a Reappraisal”: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, v. 105, pp. 69-89.
Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <hgl@dr.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 5:51 AM
to me, gutsickgibbon
Kevin R. Henke
Hans Georg Lundahl
Four Hypotheses of Kevin R. Henke for Historicity of Genesis 3
Several Types of "Supernatural" Featured in Stories Believed to be True
Two Arguments for Alexander that Atheists (and Likeminded) Should Not Use - Or Three
Real Confirmation : Too Late and Too Little Outside Greco-Roman Sphere
The Real Reason Why we Can and Could All the Time Say we Know Alexander's Carreer
Re: Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 9:51 AM
to Hans-Georg, Erika
Hi Hans,
Thanks for your hard work. I will respond to each of your 7 responses on my website and simply send you a notification with links by email when they're all done. I expect that it will take me about a week to respond to each one. Nevertheless, I do see a possible growing problem here. I would have preferred your response to have been in one well-organized, concise and unified essay, like in a peer-reviewed journal critique or a letter to the editor. If you respond to each of my 7 responses with 7 that's 49. Then responding to my 49 with 7 each will lead to 343. In the next year or so, few people will want to wade through hundreds if not thousands of responses to responses to responses... Nevertheless, your 7 responses are divided neatly into different topics. So, that is a good advantage. Anyway, I ask that you be very careful in the future not to create too many sidelines. I expect that it will take me at least into May to finish all 7 responses and then I'll release them all at once to you and the public. Talk to you then.
Best
Kevin
Re: Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <hgl@dr.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 11:06 AM
to me
Hello!
I can see what you mean.
The seven responses were there because of the classification I made of the diverse arguments McDaniel* and you presented.
I was actually hoping for you to write an essay like the one you did and make the seven topics sections or so ...
You see, my blog posts do not always correspond to a full academic essay, I would say the seven (with a possible 8th upcoming on William Tell and Catholic saints) are to be regarded as sections of one such.
Obviously, whichever way you choose, take your time, a week or two is no problem, I have other debates (including one on same topic on relative documentary value of Egyptian King lists and Genesis 11 chronology:
Stories are evidence of the past, and "mythological" is a label with very little precise meaning.
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2022/03/stories-are-evidence-of-past-and.html
and including a very different one:
Extract of Lazar - Akin : Where is the Authority?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2022/03/extract-of-lazar-akin-where-is-authority.html
Hans Georg Lundahl
* Do you have contact info for him or her whichever be the true gender? I answered McDaniel too.
Re: Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 11:26 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
I'm going to try to combine your seven essays into one response. This may take me until May 15 or maybe later. I want to respond properly not only for your benefit, but also for the readers of our blogs. If you have a response on William Tell, the Roman Catholic saints, and any other topics, I ask that you wait to add those comments until you respond to my response after May 15. I'm also dealing with a number of family issues and writing a book. Unfortunately, I don't know TirarADeguello or have an email address for him/her. All I can tell you is to post under TirarADeguello's last comment and tell him/her to Google on your name or the title of your website and notify him/her that you have responded in detail there to his/her comments.
Best
Kevin
Re: Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <hgl@dr.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 12:33 PM
to me
Not TirarADeguello I asked you for, I've notified Ernest already, I meant McDaniel, whom you cited.
Re: Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Mar 15, 12:45 PM
to Hans-Georg
I don't know Spencer McDaniel's email address. You might try entering her name into Google or Facebook. A message here indicates that she is a student at Indiana University Bloomington that is expected to graduate in May 2022:
Does the Bible Really Say You Should Beat Your Children? - Tales of Times Forgotten
But, I could not find her email address at the university website.
Kevin
about halfway to the May 15 delay
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
i, Apr 8, 6:31 AM
to me, gutsickgibbon
* don't forget your upcoming reply, Henke!
* I'm using the debate, for instance here:
Enjoy the holidays!
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Fri, Apr 8, 9:27 PM
to Hans-Georg
Yes, I know. I'm working on it.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 6:31 AM Hans-Georg Lundahl <hgl@dr.com> wrote:
* don't forget your upcoming reply, Henke!
* I'm using the debate, for instance here:
Enjoy the holidays!
Re: about halfway to the May 15 delay
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat, Apr 9, 4:10 AM
to me
wonderful, c u l8er!
My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, May 15, 12:13 AM (7 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I hope that you're having a great spring. I've just posted my response to your seven essays here:
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/henke-2022b
I combined your seven essays into one response. PLEASE DO NOT produce multiple essays from my one response again. If you decide to respond to my May 15, 2022 essay, I WILL NOT even read your response if it's not in ONE complete, clearly written, well-referenced, and spell-checked essay. I should also state that my Google website does not recognize table formats and highlighting. Sorry about that. It does, however, recognize bolding and colored print.
Because I really want you to spend time carefully thinking about the issues that I have raised in this May 15 essay and reference them well, I don't want you to respond to my essay until JULY 15, 2022. If you decide to respond and finish your response early, please wait until July 15 before sending it to me. I have other things going on this summer and I won't be able to respond to it until then anyway. On July 15, I will briefly review your essay if you decide to respond. If it's in one-piece, unambiguous and properly referenced, I'll write a response. Otherwise, I'll send it back to you to have it redone.
Best,
Kevin
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 2:21 AM (6 days ago)
to me, gutsickgibbon
As to spell checked, grammarly would consider "labour" and "phantasise" as spelling errors. So, get over your US fetish for US spelling.
I also do not feel any qualms about writing on one "story" in multiple blog posts, as I link between them, it suits my working style better.
"Because I really want you to spend time carefully thinking about the issues that I have raised"
Won't probably happen anyway. So far, you have been behind me on raising new issues, you didn't raise any new line of thought for me, you just gave me a new item to exercise my usual fare on.
But even apart from that, I do not own a computer, I cannot save different pieces on a screen and then string them together in the right order, blog posts are less well uploadable if long, I have had trouble using google sites, and so, your conditions are a good reason to simply call the whole thing off.
Change them, or this is it./HGL
Spellcheck, indeed ... !
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 3:07 AM (6 days ago)
to me
I'll in extenso quote Helge Fauskanger's apology for his way of spelling English:
Of a modern Mannish tongue
The documents on this web page are written in the Common Tongue of this age, Anglian or in its own term English. Anglian is a not-so-ancient tongue of Britannia beyond the Sea, definitely not the first to be recorded in writing, but once it was recorded, its users never took courage and revised the spelling - no matter how irregular and ridiculous it became as the centuries passed by and numerous sound-changes caused great upheavals in the phonology. Later, the Anglians decided that the rest of the world was just dying to be ruled by them and did their best to comply. Thus their tongue was spread to many lands and continents. Unfortunately, the colonies eventually proved ungrateful and rejected the beneficient, civilizing rule of the Anglians. An early and prominent case was the great (very great, actually) isle of America, but later a number of other states followed suit, and the Empire crumbled. Nonetheless, the Anglian tongue had become very widespread. Moreover, the great (still very great) isle of America rose to a position of immense political power and cultural dominance, flooding the world with movies, soap operas and songs in the Anglian tongue (the songs, at least, could not be dubbed). Though others often found this tongue difficult to pronounce, not just because the spelling only hinted how the words were pronounced but also because the language was full of blurred vowels and weird spirants and sibilants, it at least had a fairly simple grammar. In particular, the language had disposed of cases and different genders of the noun. So after all, it was about as good a lingua franca as one could realistically hope for. In any case, there was no real alternative, to the great regret of the Esperantists and the French.
This, then, was the tongue the present writer - himself a Norwegian - had to use when he prepared the material for this site, having a world-wide audience in mind. In some cases, he observed that the British and the American Loremasters do not agree on certain points when it comes to the representation of Anglian in writing. In such cases I feel perfectly free to make my own choice. I write colour instead of color, for that is what I learnt at school. In the case of British analyse vs. American analyze and similar words, such as realise vs. realize, I go with the Americans: the sibilant is voiced Z! For some stupid reason, the Americans and the British don't agree on which quotation marks to use, "..." or '....'. Here I use "..." for primary quotation and '...' for a quotation inside a quotation, following American (and Norwegian) usage. However, the Americans have introduced a weird (not to say WRONG) order of symbols when a quotation mark occurs together with a full stop; they insist on placing the quotation mark at the end even if the quotation does not embrace the whole sentence:
American: Tolkien's linguistic constructions are best considered "simulated languages."
British: Tolkien's linguistic constructions are best considered 'simulated languages'.
The British system is clearly the most logical; the quotation marks should be treated like parentheses: Who would conclude a sentence with .) unless the parentheses embraced the whole sentence? Well, I guess many ignorants would. But in this case, I go with the British, except that I use the American quotation marks. (Tolkien's linguistic constructions are best considered "simulated languages".) Norwegian, of course, uses the nice, correct, logical system.
Many American Loremasters insist that the abbreviation i.e. should be followed by a comma. The British Loremasters tend to disagree. So do I.
The system outlined here is just the one I use myself. I will not impose it on articles written by other people (especially native speakers of English), if such articles are added to my page.
https://folk.uib.no/hnohf/explan.htm
I disagree on his reasoning for z in analyze - S also stands for voiced sibilant between vowels (raiSe), where, for unvoiced, you'd need C or SS (voiCe).
As for quotation marks, this is what I learned by mainly Brits in IB in Sigtuna :
Tolkien's linguistic constructions are best considered "simulated languages."
Helge Fauskanger said "Tolkien's linguistic constructions are best considered 'simulated languages'."
Get a grip on the fact your own standard of English isn't the only one world wide, it's like a Dutchman complaining of the usage of a Flemish Belgian! Or a Swiss German complaining of "Kuß" where in Zürich the spelling must be "Kuss" - so, stop any kind of criticisms on my English unless you can really back them up linguistically as per all standards of English!
Hans Georg Lundahl
The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 5:45 AM (6 days ago)
to me
And apart from that, but that's not changing, you have shown an incompetence in reading, lacking both Catholic culture and internet culture.
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/05/henke-cant-read.html
But as a minimum, there is a certain place where you enumerate my essays presumably in the order I wrote it, while I very intentionally put
The Real Reason Why we Can and Could All the Time Say we Know Alexander's Carreer last
because that finished my argument.
Could you rework the marking of the essays?
1) you have given my essays in the wrong order
2) it is confusing that your own "b" comes after my "g"/HGL
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 6:11 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
If you had actually bothered to carefully read my May 15 2022 essay, you would have realized that I'm not complaining about British variations in spellings, but totally unacceptable misspellings, such as "carreer" (Lundahl 2022d) and non-existent words like "undecisives" (Lundahl 2022g). There's no excuse for you not being able to produce one coherent and legible essay. If you can't afford a thumbdrive for about 1 Euro to store your in-progress work, then at the end of the day email your in-progress work to yourself or use DropBox or other storage systems. No, I will not tolerate you sending any more multiple essays full of misspellings, sloppy referencing and rambling paragraphs. Write a coherent essay on July 15 and integrate anything that you've posted on your website today into that essay.
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 6:15 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
No. I will not reorder your essays. That would cause confusion among our readers. You created this mess by producing multiple essays on March 15. You'll have to deal with it. You need to send me one coherent essay on July 15 and include what you're written today about me supposedly not being able to read.
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 6:40 AM (6 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
I created no mess whatsoever.
I wrote the essays in order of what I felt inclined to, and I also PLACED the essays in order of the correct overall disposition. YOU created a mess by vandalising it, and YOU should deal with it by restoring my order.
The first three essays deal with the supernatural, especially the "talking snake", the last four, Alexander.* And, yes, this refers to the order in which I PUT them. Together they form one COHERENT essay, and you have taken pains (both by simple incompetence, as I dealt with on the link, but also by deliberately re-ordering the essays after date of signature to present it as an incoherent one.
You can remake your essay and call it "round two version bis" (we obviously keep the essays as they stand but call it "interlude" or "skirmish before round two") instead of "b" and in it you can delete references to your own incompetence as a reader as well (legitimate concerns as who Bishop Challener was can be adressed like "I had no clue who bishop Challoner was, but as HGL explained in the interlude, it was the Catholic commenter on the Bible text" or words to similar effect) as most obviously the wrong reading order for my essays.
I am now asking YOU to declutter what YOU cluttered.
Hans Georg Lundahl
PS - I obviously am telling not just your friend Gutsick Gibbon, but also my friend Stephan Borgehammar about this./HGL
* The order of the first three : I begin with a consideration of your quadrilemma, and I then adress two points more fully than I did in it; the last four, I use three to eliminate insufficient arguments for the thesis that Alexander came from little Greece and conquered the big orient, in the last (of the four an overall), I give the adequate arguments, with real oldest textual confirmation in Maccabees, as added in the PPS.
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 6:47 AM (6 days ago)
to me, gutsickgibbon, Stephan
Carreer or career comes from French "carrière". The etymon having double r, the English version should have such a spelling variant too, and I am not complying by Merriam Webster.
Undecisives was not a spelling mistake, it was searching for a word. In Paris, I am surrounded by people who can imagine "fourteen = 40" and who are not competent to tell me "you were looking for non-decisive". Your spell checker giving "indecisive" was highly not what I was looking for.
And apart from these two, it is not I who am not producing a coherent and legible essay (though posted on 7 different pages after its parts), it is, as already mentioned:
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/05/henke-cant-read.html
... you who cannot read.
Right now I can't consult the Oxford English Dictionary for "carreer", I will, but when the work for a certain bird has the versions "feasant, phaisant, faisant, pheasant" I am confident it has more spellings than "career".
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 6:55 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg, Erika
No. If you haven't noticed we're conducting our dialogue in ENGLISH and not French or some other language. Write in English only! Your spelling is totally unacceptable.
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 6:58 AM (6 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
In fact, the form with double R exists, but also has a final e, with or without spelling versions on the second syllable's vowel sound.
Carreere, carreire - both exist in the Oxford ENGLISH Dictionary.
Your view on what's acceptable spelling is purely Merriam Webster Puritanism./HGL
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 at 12:55 PM
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 7:04 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Who is Stephen Borgehammer? I don't care who you tell what. You created this mess by having multiple essays and not clearly identifying which was first, second, third, or Part 1, 2, 3, etc. IN THE TITLES This is your fault and you'll have to deal with your mess. I arranged the order of your essays according to how I discussed them in my essay. I'm not changing them. Now, if you have anything more to say, complain to me on July 15.
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 7:23 AM (6 days ago)
to me, gutsickgibbon, Stephan
I identified the order by the order given in the links list on top.
Here it is:
Kevin R. Henke
Hans Georg Lundahl
Four Hypotheses of Kevin R. Henke for Historicity of Genesis 3
Several Types of "Supernatural" Featured in Stories Believed to be True
Two Arguments for Alexander that Atheists (and Likeminded) Should Not Use - Or Three
Real Confirmation : Too Late and Too Little Outside Greco-Roman Sphere
The Real Reason Why we Can and Could All the Time Say we Know Alexander's Carreer
Very visible, the sequence top to bottom constitutes a reading order.
To make this even more abundantly clear, I will add in the comments links from each (ecxept last) to next.
Stephan Borgehammar, meet Kevin R. Henke, who is not a historian, but a geologist.
Kevin R. Henke, meet Stephan Borgehammar who is dean of the faculty of Theology at Lund University, formerly mostly engaged in teaching Church History and Practical Theology.
Gutsick Gibbon or Erika - I hope you noted, and Stephan, she is a primatologist on whose video I first saw Kevin R. Henke.
And, part of the reason I brought in Stephan is, we were speaking of whether non-standard spellings could make you either illegible (KRH) or "not taken serious" (SB), the latter arguably due to the existance of a Swedish comical weekly, Grönköping, which uses verb forms prior to 1950, but actually doesn't challenge the spelling changes of 1870's and 1906.
My Carreer Shouldn't Depend on Merriam Webster Spelling
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/p/my-carreer-shouldnt-depend-on-merriam.html
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 7:24 AM (6 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
Spelling is an art, and no one will take "carreer" as being another word than "career".
No one in his senses, that is.
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Inbox
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 7:06 AM (10 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
NO. If the word in BOTH Oxford and Merriam-Webster, it's not widely known about English speakers and should not be used. Your misspellings don't help your arguments.
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 7:11 AM (10 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
NO. If the word is NOT in BOTH Oxford and Merriam-Webster, it's probably not widely known among English speakers and it should not be used. Your misspellings don't help your arguments and demonstrate that you can effectively communicate in English.
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 7:26 AM (6 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
Ah, thanks for adding the "knot" in the first place.
Should I presume one to be understood also in "and demonstrate that you can effectively communicate in English"? Don't bother to send a third version with "can" corrected to "can't" - I can communicate in English well enough to understand that./HGL
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 7:27 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
No. This list is not an acceptable indication of ordering. I put your essays in the order that worked for my one essay. Again, you should have indicated the ordering that you wanted in the titles of your essays. You did not and now you have to deal with it. Use the spellings that normal English speakers would use. Colour/color is fine, but carreer and undecisive are not.
Kevin
Re: My May 15 2022 Reply has been Posted (same cc as i previous)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 7:29 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Save your further complaints for July 15.
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 10:59 AM (6 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
You were perfectly free to answer in whatever sequence you wanted, while leaving the sequence of my essays in correct order.
It is not acceptable for me to be restricted by what you consider "acceptable indication" as any normal internaut would have seen the similarity between my vertical ordering and a table of contents.
As for "carreer" it's a habit I have not decided to change. Undecisive may be a faulty word, but not a faulty spelling of non-decisive.
Meanwhile, your Puritan attitude about what counts as actually breaking a law of nature has found a refutation in the next essay I give in the second round:
Creation vs. Evolution : Henke Can't Argue Philosophy Very Well Either
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/05/henke-cant-argue-philosophy-very-well.html
Aside : Stephan, hope you enjoy this!
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 11:16 AM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg, Stephan, Erika
No. The ordering I have is consistent with the format in Henke 2022b. I'm not changing it. I warned you on March 15 NOT to use multiple essays and how they could multiple into a mess for our readers to wade through. I let it go once, but not anymore. I also told you that I'm busy this summer and to wait until July 15 to respond to me. So, collect your ideas and complaints, and carefully think about the issues over the next two months. I'm not interested in the links that you've sent me today. They were obviously done in haste. So, get yourself a thumbdrive or use a personal file on your website to work on one coherent and well-written essay over the next two months. Make sure that your essay has a decent bibliography and spelling that is consistent with the general population of the United Kingdom/Canada or USA (Our readers may not know French! Think of them and stick with English.)
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 16, 1:47 PM (6 days ago)
to me
The "haste" is adequate as response to your "leasure" ... and a UK, Canada or US reader who can't understand "carreer" is "alone, withouten any companie" as Chesterton wrote about keeping archaic phrases in Chaucer semi-translated to modern English.
My kind of public are not the kind of people who require Chicago format of citation, I try to entertain them at your expense./HGL
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, May 16, 2:06 PM (6 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Misspelled words makes you look poorly educated in English and the your lack of proper referencing leads to confusion. You cannot assume that all of our readers will know who Chaucer, Bishop Challoner and William Collins are. Think about our readers and don't confuse and frustrate them with your improper English and lack of references. We are not here to entertain people, but to inform them and to provide additional references where they can learn more. That requires well-organized, thoroughly referenced, clearly written and professional essays. You're not doing that.
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Tue, May 17, 12:41 PM (5 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
I think my answer may have some concern for Stephan too.
I am not on the internet to provide mindless entertainment, like (if you qualify that as mindless) getting to a roller coaster at Six flags.
But I very much do believe in the power of edutainment, and am trying to provide that.
Also, we belong to different tribes. You are natural sciences, very little awareness of Catholic culture. I am primarily what some call a Humanist - means, educated in humanities, not a signer of Humanist manifesto I, II or III, and am a Catholic. While it is true a non-Catholic might not have known who Bishop Challoner was, a non-Catholic with more in common with me would have seen from the verse number identic to a Bible verse containing words identical to those quoted that Bishop Challoner was a Bible commenter.
He would then probably have proceeded to actually look him up. He might then politely have suggested I add a link to the Bible page containing Numbers 22 with some comments by Challoner, as it would have clarified things.
William Collins, you have a very good point : I would have been better off leaving him out altogether, and he came in bc some have, like you, pestered me about exact references. On the internet, one is after all able to look up Miracles C. S. Lewis, and adding it was chapter 8 in the edition that is made by HarperCollins was over the top.
There are definitely more people around the English speaking world who know who William Chaucer was, than who require a Chicago format of references.
And, for the future, I am not sure whether I shall write "carreere" instead, but the requirement to write "career" reminds me so of people telling Tolkien that "dwarves" is a misspelling or that "helms too they chose" is incorrect English. To me those are Barbarians without letters. Especially if they are half-educated enough to cite Merriam-Webster.
My essays are clearly written, to the general public. They are professional, in the format of the essay that started in English around the Tatler and the Rambler. They just do not subscribe to the narrow criteria of clarity that the professionality of an Academic essay imposes. If you like, there was inclarity (unclarity? lack of clarity?) between us from the start. You were speaking of the kind of essays that Academia publishes on your institution and in peer reviewed journals read on it, and I was speaking of essays like those by C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton, and, somewhat less numerous, but supplemented by his letters, by J. R. R. Tolkien. Or by my countryman Frans G. Bengtsson, who, like I, was no fan of the spelling reform in 1906. I am not sure if collections like the "Longhaired Merovingians" or "In Defense of El Cid's Honour" (to use my ad hoc translations) are available in English, but Stephan Borgehammar will know what I am talking about.
You are very welcome to argue with me on the issue, and to use your format while I use mine, but trying to play the role of a mentor to a man already 53 is highly offensive to me.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, May 17, 12:58 PM (5 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Just put all of your complaints into one clearly written summary for July 15. I really don't want to hear from you until then.
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Wed, May 18, 1:27 PM (4 days ago)
to me, Stephan
Stephan Borgehammar is also known to have read C. S. Lewis' Miracles, so, he can see if I was right to totally flunk your reading on that book.
Henke Still Can't Read - Or Hasn't Done so To Lewis
After you have already published your hatchet job, do you imagine you are in a position to ask me to wait up to a deadline? I am supposed to keep silent on your misrepresentations and your sheer lack of competence in both reading comprehension (outside your favoured type of non-fiction text) and philosophy?
Or your strawman of what either CSL or myself produced?/HGL
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Wed, May 18, 2:15 PM (4 days ago)
to Hans-Georg, Stephan
Dear Hans,
The July 15, 2022 deadline is for YOUR benefit so that you could produce a well-thought-out document with proper English spelling and a good bibliography instead of expecting people to try to figure out what your [citation needed] statements mean because you obviously didn't bother to even briefly proof-read your own work. THIS WOULD ALSO GIVE ________ A CHANCE TO DEAL WITH _______ SERIOUS PROBLEMS without you constantly interrupting me. [personal notes removed]
Again, I expect you to show some patience and discipline, and produce a well thought-out SINGLE response with good spelling and references that benefit our readers, which could include people from 12 -90 years of age and people from Wyoming and Australia that don't know any French, including your French misspellings of English words or your French phrases. You want people to be impressed by how you spell "career" and other words, but it would have an opposite effect with anyone from Idaho, Alabama or Australia that doesn't know any French and can't figure out why you can't use a spell check. You should realize that most Americans don't know any French. Spanish has largely replaced it as a foreign language in our high schools and small colleges (like the one I went to). Think about your readers and their needs. Don't expect them to figure out who Bishop Challenor is . That's rude. Although your English is good and I don't expect it to be perfect, you desperately need to proof-read your own work before you send it - that's another reason why you should be patient and take until July 15 before you post something. But, so be it. Go ahead and get out your anger and hatred for me out and when you're finished, let me know and I'll respond in two months. That will give me the time I need to deal with family issues and to do some careful research about your claims.
Meanwhile, I hope that you're doing well and have a good summer. [XXXX Personal note removed.] I admire you as a person and your intelligence, but not what you write or do.
Best,
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Wed, May 18, 4:03 PM (4 days ago)
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
Use your time as you see fit, you have your obvious priorities.
Meanwhile, I do not see a deadline to July 15 as benefitting my writing process, which I am not changing on your request. Here we come to principles, read or leave aside to when it suite you:
To Reaffirm "Earliest Known Audience"
And best wishes for [personal note] !/HGL
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Wed, May 18, 4:09 PM (4 days ago)
to Hans-Georg, Stephan
Thanks Hans for your sympathies for [personal note]. Again, when you finish venting your responses, let me know. I'll then start a two month clock for me to respond. I'll need two months to investigate your claims, check any of your references (if I can find them) and then respond appropriately. Again, think of our diverse and largely English-only audience when you write.
Later,
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu, May 19, 9:05 AM (3 days ago)
to me
Hans
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, May 19, 9:20 AM (3 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Just say what you mean.
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, May 22, 11:50 PM (4 days ago)
to me, Stephan
Has it occurred to you that "see you later alligator" is not just a saying - it's also a song by ... original Bill Haley!
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, May 22, 11:52 PM (4 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Yes, I know the song. So, why did you send me this link?
Kevin
Re: The Order of my Essays was NOT arbitrary (cc. to an Academic friend each of us)
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, May 23, 1:22 AM (3 days ago)
to me
Bc your "later" reminded me of it, that's all!
Alexander Answer Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Jul 3, 9:28 AM
to Stephan, me, gutsickgibbon
As to order between my parts:
1) it is evident from how it mirrors the order of Kevin Henke 2022b
2) and from the order given in the link series in the post headers
3) and from fact that each has a link to next, except the last one, from today.
Here we go:
Second Round essays: Henke Can't Read · Henke Can't Argue Philosophy Very Well Either · Henke Still Can't Read - Or Hasn't Done so To Lewis · To Reaffirm "Earliest Known Audience" · The Philosophy of History of Henke : Given without References, Refuted without References · He Applies It · (Excursus on William Tell and Catholic Saints) · Continuing on Section 5 · We're Into Section 6!
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Jul 3, 9:43 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I hope that you're doing well this summer.
So, you're finished with this round? If so, I'll start the next round and reply by or on September 15, 2022.
By the way, are you a geocentrist?
A: Yes
B: No
C: Undecided
Kevin
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Jul 3, 11:18 AM
to me
A - Definite yes.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Jul 3, 11:22 AM
to Hans-Georg
Thanks for your prompt answer. Have a great summer. [XXXX Personal note removed.]
Please wait for my September 15, 2022 reply before answering further on your website or email. You've given me more than enough material to think about and reply to by September 15.
Thanks
Kevin
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Jul 3, 11:32 AM
to me
"Have a great summer."
Thank you!
XXXX [Personal Notes removed]
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sun, Jul 3, 4:24 PM
to me
Oh, just to be clear on one thing - the Geocentrism answer does not belong to the "personal emails" - it's an important part of my case for a Young Earth and Universe (like takes care of Distant Starlight), of my case for God (the more impossible Geocentrism is with only gravitation and inertia, the more God is needed in a Geocentric universe, the one we have prima facie evidence for), and on two issues even of my Catholic faith : like Heaven is a place (and so are Hell and surrounding areas of Sheol), like Christ's natural body is in Heaven and our resurrected bodies shall be there.
In other words, this issue should absolutely NOT be swamped with personal emails XXXXX [personal items removed] - just so we are clear on that one, please!
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Jul 3, 4:37 PM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I hope that I'm understanding you correctly. I made sure that your position on geocentrism is prominent on my website and not hidden. On September 15, I'll post more of our emails since April on my website and I'll include the ones on your geocentrism position. I'll also make some brief comments on geocentrism in my response on September 15. XXXXX [personal discussions removed]
Kevin
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mon, Jul 4, 9:37 AM
to me
wonderful
Re: Alexander Answer Done
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Jul 4, 9:41 AM
to Hans-Georg
Great! I'll talk with you on or before September 15.
Response Posted
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Sep 15, 9:02 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans,
[personal greeting omitted]
I've been having trouble with my free Google website. I'm running out of space. For now, it works. My wife is preparing a new website for me with a lot more space and eventually I'll transfer our debate files onto it. I'll let you know when it's ready. Considering that I'm going to have to change the URLs of thousands of links, it will be slow and take months.
For now, my response is here and it's working:
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Rather than exchanging a lot of emails back and forth, I think in the future that I'll just mostly respond to your emails directly on my website.
Best
Kevin
Re: Response Posted
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 15, 2:18 PM
to me
Thank you very much for both - the well wish and the debate instalment!
[personal information omitted]
Hans Georg Lundahl
A first instalment of my responses ...
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Sat, Sep 17, 2:24 PM
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/what-henke-responded-up-to-henke2022aa.html
Now it's four
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Tue, Sep 20, 11:11 AM
to Stephan, me
What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous)
· Ah, Some New
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/ah-some-new.html
· Back to Philosophy
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/back-to-philosophy.html
· Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope.
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/beginning-on-henke2022az-nope.html
I'll try to make it nine, perhaps sixteen .../HGL
Re: Now it's four
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Sep 20, 11:12 AM
to Hans-Georg
Ok. Thanks
On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 11:11 AM Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX> wrote:
What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous)
· Ah, Some New
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/ah-some-new.html
· Back to Philosophy
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/back-to-philosophy.html
· Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope.
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/09/beginning-on-henke2022az-nope.html
I'll try to make it nine, perhaps sixteen .../HGL
More posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sat, Sep 24, 8:46 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Hope you are well. I posted more essays at my website.
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Kevin
Re: More posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Sat, Sep 24, 2:32 PM
to me
Thank you!
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 2:46 PM
From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
Subject: More posts
Hi Hans
Hope you are well. I posted more essays at my website.
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Kevin
update, 10 posts by now ...
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Sun, Sep 25, 11:52 AM
to me, gutsickgibbon, Stephan
What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous) · Ah, Some New · Back to Philosophy · Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope. · Why Catalogue the Supernatural? Why Catalogue Fiction? · Henke(2022bi) Starts It Today! But I only get to Henke(2022bk) For Now. · New Batch of Henke Essays · Resuming at Henke(2022bL) after Interruption, up to 2022br. · Why Did I Bring Up Greek Myth? · Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis
The new posts by Henke on the 23rd were answered in New Batch of Henke Essays.
Blessed Sunday!
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: update, 10 posts by now ...
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Sun, Sep 25, 12:27 PM
to Hans-Georg
Thanks! Have a good day Hans!
On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 11:52 AM Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX> wrote:
What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous) · Ah, Some New · Back to Philosophy · Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope. · Why Catalogue the Supernatural? Why Catalogue Fiction? · Henke(2022bi) Starts It Today! But I only get to Henke(2022bk) For Now. · New Batch of Henke Essays · Resuming at Henke(2022bL) after Interruption, up to 2022br. · Why Did I Bring Up Greek Myth? · Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis
The new posts by Henke on the 23rd were answered in New Batch of Henke Essays.
Blessed Sunday!
Hans Georg Lundahl
Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Mon, Sep 26, 2:56 PM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I've decided to post my essays in smaller groups and much more frequently. Over the next 1 to 2 years, please check this webpage every day for updates.
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Thanks
Kevin
Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Tue, Sep 27, 6:54 AM
to me
Thank you.
I begin to feel, your superiority in internet time may just make it impossible for me to keep up. We'll see. I do not promise to keep up.
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 at 8:56 PM
From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
Subject: Posts
Hi Hans
I've decided to post my essays in smaller groups and much more frequently. Over the next 1 to 2 years, please check this webpage every day for updates.
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Thanks
Kevin
Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Tue, Sep 27, 8:38 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Do what you can.
Frankly, I'm disappointed in our behaviors and debate. Our debate is turning into more insults than anything productive or positive. I don't think we're going to change each other's minds. I doubt that anyone would want to fully read or appreciate what we've done. I'm willing to remove our debate and everything else that I've said about you, directly or indirectly, from my website without explanation if you do the same for me. We'll never speak of each other directly or indirectly again on our websites. We can just leave what we've done on Erika's website, but not add to it. I can periodically monitor your website to make sure that you're keeping your end of the bargain and you can monitor mine. Just search on your name or phrases, such as "the individual that I met on Erika's website", on my website to verify that I'm keeping the deal. If someone asks me about what happened to our debate, I'll simply state that we ended and erased it by mutual agreement. I won't mention details and I'll copy you off on the email. You can do the exact same for me. I'll keep a copy of what we've done on my computer. If one of us violates the agreement, the other can warn the violator by email. If the deal is broken, everything can be reposted and the debate will restart. Does this sound like a deal? If not, we can keep going and hopefully things will improve. I was once in an email debate that lasted from about 2007-2017. So, this could last for a long time.
Best
Kevin
On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 6:54 AM Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX> wrote:
Thank you.
I begin to feel, your superiority in internet time may just make it impossible for me to keep up. We'll see. I do not promise to keep up.
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 at 8:56 PM
From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
Subject: Posts
Hi Hans
I've decided to post my essays in smaller groups and much more frequently. Over the next 1 to 2 years, please check this webpage every day for updates.
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Thanks
Kevin
Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Tue, Sep 27, 11:01 AM
to me, Stephan, gutsickgibbon
I do very much not agree to that.
All I have posted remains.
I have a little suspicion that you saw my arguments, and if not considering them as weakening your position among your own, at least you had a shrewd idea that it could change other peoples' minds, and so you started to do some more insulting than you had otherwise wanted to, just in order to have a trade.
B U T - no deal. Oh, I am very far from guaranteeing these mails won't come up too.
Hans Georg Lundahl
> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 2:38 PM
> From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
> To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
> Subject: Re: Posts
>
> Hi Hans
>
> Do what you can.
>
> Frankly, I'm disappointed in our behaviors and debate. Our debate is
> turning into more insults than anything productive or positive. I don't
> think we're going to change each other's minds. I doubt that anyone would
> want to fully read or appreciate what we've done. I'm willing to remove our
> debate and everything else that I've said about you, directly or
> indirectly, from my website without explanation if you do the same for me.
> We'll never speak of each other directly or indirectly again on
> our websites. We can just leave what we've done on Erika's website, but
> not add to it. I can periodically monitor your website to make sure that
> you're keeping your end of the bargain and you can monitor mine. Just
> search on your name or phrases, such as "the individual that I met on
> Erika's website", on my website to verify that I'm keeping the deal. If
> someone asks me about what happened to our debate, I'll simply state that
> we ended and erased it by mutual agreement. I won't mention details and
> I'll copy you off on the email. You can do the exact same for me. I'll
> keep a copy of what we've done on my computer. If one of us violates the
> agreement, the other can warn the violator by email. If the deal is
> broken, everything can be reposted and the debate will restart. Does this
> sound like a deal? If not, we can keep going and hopefully things will
> improve. I was once in an email debate that lasted from about 2007-2017.
> So, this could last for a long time.
>
> Best
>
> Kevin
>
>
Re: Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Wed, Sep 28, 10:29 AM
to Hans-Georg
Good day, Hans:
I accept your decision. I fully expect that you will post any of our emails. That's fine. I also post our emails, except that as a favor to you, I remove the personal details about your life . https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/raw-emails-lundahl People don't need to know those things about you.
The reason that I proposed the deal was that you admitted that you were having trouble keeping up with my posts. You don't seem to enjoy our debate. You rush through what I've written and are not taking the 4 months to respond that I took to write them. You skip over a lot of what I said and I doubt that you even took any appreciable time to carefully read many of my essays beyond the titles. To be exact, as I stated in Henke 2022ae, your false accusations of me calling miracles "impossible" demonstrate that you often don't carefully read or care about what I write. Unlike you, I'm at least willing to admit when I misread your work (e.g., Henke 2022s).
Frankly, I doubt that you will get a chance to change very many minds. I was surprised when you requested that I prominently post that you are a geocentrist on my website. Like most people, I have out-of-the-mainstream views on some issues as well, but I don't usually make them public. Geocentricism is very unpopular in at least the USA, even among young-Earth creationists. About 40% of Americans are young-Earth creationists .https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx Based on the 2020 US census https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html , there are about 258.3 million US adults. That's about 103 million American young-Earth creationists. I would expect that many, if not most, young-Earth creationists in the world are American. Very few American young-Earth creationists are geocentrists and many prominent young-Earth creationists are very embarrassed to have geocentrists in their camp. As you probably know, Faulkner (2017, pp. 40-52, etc) and others strongly attack geocentrism as anti-Biblical and extreme. The vast majority are fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants, and many are anti-Catholic. Once they see that you are a geocentrist and even a Catholic, many of them are going to dismiss you outright and are not going to bother to read whatever you write. That is, unfortunate and irrational, but that's how things are.
If you change your mind, let me know. I was trying to do you a favor. You seem rushed and worn out.
So, our debate will go on.
Best as always
Kevin
Faulkner, D.R. 2017, The Expanse of Heaven: Where Creation & Astronomy Intersect: Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 350pp.
Re: Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Wed, Sep 28, 11:09 AM
to me
I was indeed rushed. You know what? I may simply say that I am taking a bit more time.
That Faulkner calls Geocentrism false, I am very aware.
That he called it "anti-Biblical" very much surprises me. Unbiblical, in the sense as "not directly supported by the Bible" - yes, I can see how he would say that, as otherwise he would indeed be inconsistent in rejecting Geocentrism, but "anti-Biblical" - that surprises me.
Do you know what?
I'd in fact enjoy a pause from the subjects so far discussed (pause, not closure, not withdrawal) and taking some time over Geocentrism.
As to your point about thinking miracles "possible but very unlikely" I don't see how it can philosophically be distinguished from "impossible" though I know that you make a distinction. My judgement that it is otiose is not a misreading.
If miracles are (philosophically speaking) possible, their likelihood should be ascertained by empirical evidence, like the massive amount of miraculous accounts in more than one historic source. If they are impossible, they are indeed so "unlikely" that prohibitive criteria for accepting them are raised. That's why I consider your position as inconsistent and closest to (among consistent positions) the one that miracles are impossible.
If we look up at the sky, without previous philosophic or scientific spectacles - we see the Sun and Moon move and we see the stars move. When we see the stars move, we see that different constellations are opposed to the Sun if we look up straight South at midnight (when the Sun is below our feet and below the Earth below them, to the North). In March, we could see Virgo just opposite the Sun. In September (well not these last days of it) we can see Pisces opposite the Sun. So, Sun and Moon (not enumerating the observations for the Moon) wander around the Zodiac, and below it. In March we cannot see Pisces, presumably because the Sun is in front of them. In September we cannot see Virgo, presumably because the Sun is in front of her.
We can also see some "apparent stars" behave the same way, and in telescope we can see they have no own light. We call them (as we called Sun and Moon too) planets.
What this adds up to, when we furthermore take into account the vast distance to the Moon (can by triangulated from two points across an Ocean, for instance if the Moon is straight above the Atlantic and has different angles from African and Brasil), and even vaster distance to the Sun, and from there the even vaster than that distance to the stars, we wonder why all this is moving.
One simple explanation, which has not been refuted (unless you start out excluding the supernatural) is, God is moving "the whole Shebang" (Zodiac and all) while some lesser being is moving each of the "planets" (old sense, including Sun and Moon).
Now, I actually did two posts on Geocentrism yesterday and today:
1) New blog on the kid : Deflating a Star Size, Again, or Two
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2022/09/deflating-star-size-again-or-two.html
2) New blog on the kid : What Would an Astrophysicist Object, and Why Don't I Buy It?
The post with your and my letter will be updated with a notice that you are OK with that, and that more of the correspondence is available on the blog Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl.
Hans Georg Lundahl
> Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 4:29 PM
> From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
> To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
> Subject: Re: Re: Posts
>
> Good day, Hans:
>
> I accept your decision. I fully expect that you will post any of our
> emails. That's fine. I also post our emails, except that as a favor to
> you, I remove the personal details about your life .
> https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/raw-emails-lundahl
> People don't need to know those things about you.
>
> The reason that I proposed the deal was that you admitted that you were
> having trouble keeping up with my posts.You don't seem to enjoy our
> debate. You rush through what I've written and are not taking the 4 months
> to respond that I took to write them. You skip over a lot of what I said
> and I doubt that you even took any appreciable time to carefully read many
> of my essays beyond the titles. To be exact, as I stated in Henke 2022ae,
> your false accusations of me calling miracles "impossible" demonstrate that
> you often don't carefully read or care about what I write. Unlike you, I'm
> at least willing to admit when I misread your work (e.g., Henke 2022s).
>
> Frankly, I doubt that you will get a chance to change very many minds. I
> was surprised when you requested that I prominently post that you are a
> geocentrist on my website. Like most people, I have out-of-the-mainstream
> views on some issues as well, but I don't usually make them
> public. Geocentricism is very unpopular in at least the USA, even among
> young-Earth creationists. About 40% of Americans are young-Earth
> creationists .
> https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
> Based on the 2020 US census
> , there are about 258.3 million US adults. That's about 103 million
> American young-Earth creationists. I would expect that many, if not most,
> young-Earth creationists in the world are American. Very few American
> young-Earth creationists are geocentrists and many prominent
> young-Earth creationists are very embarrassed to have geocentrists in their
> camp. As you probably know, Faulkner (2017, pp. 40-52, etc) and others
> strongly attack geocentrism as anti-Biblical and extreme. The vast
> majority are fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants, and many are
> anti-Catholic. Once they see that you are a geocentrist and even a
> Catholic, many of them are going to dismiss you outright and are not going
> to bother to read whatever you write. That is, unfortunate and irrational,
> but that's how things are.
>
> If you change your mind, let me know. I was trying to do you a favor. You
> seem rushed and worn out.
>
> So, our debate will go on.
>
> Best as always
>
> Kevin
>
> Faulkner, D.R. 2017, The Expanse of Heaven: Where Creation & Astronomy
> Intersect: Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 350pp.
Do you have any ref. from Faulkner except pages 40 - 52?
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 29, 8:28 AM
to me
I looked up your reference on Amazon, given that you offered a page reference, if it had been available, but, alas ...
Hardback the preview ends before:
Pages 33 - 316 are not included in this sample.
Kindle:
Ends on the words:
However, the motions of the planets are inclined slightly to the
ecliptic, intersecting in two points called noed, The moon's mo-
I found an earlier reference, namely Faulkner 2001:
https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/arguments-to-avoid/geocentrism-and-creation/
Not a shade of saying Geocentrism is contrary to the Bible, on the contrary he says:
"In short, the Bible is neither geocentric nor heliocentric."
Which brings us to the next point he raises:
"While geocentrists present some interesting scientific results, their scientific arguments are often based upon improper understanding of theories and data. Much of their case is based upon a misunderstanding of general relativity and the rejection of that theory. While geocentrists are well intended, their presence among recent creationists produces an easy object of ridicule by our critics."
I actually haven't based all that much on relativity. I actually became a Geocentric that very year, in the context of Distant Starlight Problem for a Young Universe - as you can see from my links, I am obviously considering the cosmic distances as highly inflated due to taking the annual nod of 0.76 arc seconds (in relation to the somewhat larger annual one of "a maximum angle of approximately 20 arcseconds in right ascension or declination") as due to the optical phenomenon called parallax (the larger one supposed due to interaction of light speed and earth speed). If the 0.76 arc seconds to alpha Centauri are not parallactic, but a proper movement performed by angels, see previous, then there are also no 4 light years to alpha Centauri. As you know, Faulkner has some struggle with the Distant Starlight Problem.
His assessment of the Bible leaves out Joshua 10:12-13 and also Habacuc 3:11.
While Joshua 10:13 by itself could allow "phenomenological language" - Habacuc 3:11 says The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation (the last word seems to indicate : from their view, not just ours) and in Joshua 12, after praying Joshua adresses Sun and Moon to stop moving, not Earth to do so.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Re: Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Sep 29, 10:03 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
I'm so sorry about the confusion. When I referred to Faulkner saying that geocentrism was antibiblical, I was summarizing his overall thoughts and not quoting him. I only have paper copies of Faulkner (2017) and (2016). Here are a few things that he actually said about geocentrism:
From Faulkner, D.R. 2017, "The Expanse of Heaven: Where Creation & Astronomy Intersect": Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 350pp.
p. 41: "Therefore, the necessity of the geocentric cosmology is a pagan Greek concept, not Christian."
p. 49: "Augustine had laid the groundwork for accepting man's ideas as ultimate truth, but Aquinas more fully developed it. Aristotelianism became the filter through which Scripture was viewed. Since Aristotle had taught the geocentric theory, certain Bible passages, such as the account of the long day at the Battle of Gibeon in Joshua 10, were interpreted in terms of the geocentric theory. That is, it became doctrine that the Bible allegedly taught the geocentric theory. The Bible does no such thing, but this nevertheless eventually became the general belief. This is an excellent example of eisegesis, reading a foriegn meaning into the Bible." [italics are his emphasis]
From Faulker, D.R. 2016. "The Created Cosmos: What the Bible Reveals About Astronomy": Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 352pp.
p. 225: "While the Bible may not be geocentric, placing the earth at the center of the universe, earth and man do appear at the center of God's attention."
p. 255: "While modern geocentrism has made inroads with certain groups of Christians today, it is based upon a faulty view of Scripture."
Again, I am so sorry. I apologize. I did not mean to mislead you about Faulkner's views.
I appreciate the offer to debate geocentrism/heliocentrism, but I'm not really interested in that topic.. You'll have to find someone else to debate that topic - maybe Faulkner or John Hartnett. I do see a big difference between saying something is highly improbable and impossible. 10^-99 is very tiny, but still it's huge compared to absolute zero. If someone says that something is "impossible", this is an act of irrational faith. When someone says that, they're saying that they are omniscient enough to declare that something will never happen, not even once anywhere in our huge Universe. I'm not that arrogant.
Best
Kevin
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 29, 11:47 AM
to me
The thing is, assessing a possibility as "10^-99" and at the same time not "0" depends on a mathematical quantification of the possibility.
But such things would need an empirical basis, which is precisely what a study of history does not provide for assessing miracles as "10^-99" - more like from 10^-3 to 10^-6 or sth.
Assessing the probability as "10^-99" without that is basically just a "modest" way of saying and at the same time not saying "0."
Thank you for correcting your resumé of Faulkner with direct quotes. I obviously disagree with those too. On Joshua 10 he has probably just seen verses 13 and 14 without a close analysis of verse 12. And as a Catholic, I deeply disagree with his view of St. Augustine - whose City of God was my intro to, once again after a backslide on the issue after conversion, taking the Biblical chronology seriously.
Hans Georg Lundahl
> Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 4:03 PM
> From: "Kevin R. Henke" <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
> To: "Hans-Georg Lundahl" <XXXXXXXX>
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Posts
>
> Hi Hans
>
> I'm so sorry about the confusion. When I referred to Faulkner saying that
> geocentrism was antibiblical, I was summarizing his overall thoughts and
> not quoting him. I only have paper copies of Faulkner (2017) and (2016).
> Here are a few things that he actually said about geocentrism:
>
> From Faulkner, D.R. 2017, "The Expanse of Heaven: Where Creation &
> Astronomy Intersect": Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 350pp.
>
> p. 41: "Therefore, the necessity of the geocentric cosmology is a pagan
> Greek concept, not Christian."
>
> p. 49: "Augustine had laid the groundwork for accepting man's ideas as
> ultimate truth, but Aquinas more fully developed it. Aristotelianism
> became the filter through which Scripture was viewed. Since Aristotle had
> taught the geocentric theory, certain Bible passages, such as the account
> of the long day at the Battle of Gibeon in Joshua 10, were interpreted in
> terms of the geocentric theory. That is, it became *doctrine* that the
> Bible allegedly taught the geocentric theory. The Bible does no such
> thing, but this nevertheless eventually became the general belief. This is
> an excellent example of *eisegesis*, reading a foriegn meaning into the
> Bible." [italics are his emphasis]
>
> From Faulker, D.R. 2016. "The Created Cosmos: What the Bible Reveals About
> Astronomy": Master Books: Green Forest, Arkansas, USA, 352pp.
>
> p. 225: "While the Bible may not be geocentric, placing the earth at the
> center of the universe, earth and man do appear at the center of God's
> attention."
>
> p. 255: "While modern geocentrism has made inroads with certain groups of
> Christians today, it is based upon a faulty view of Scripture."
>
> Again, I am so sorry. I apologize. I did not mean to mislead you about
> Faulkner's views.
>
> I appreciate the offer to debate geocentrism/heliocentrism, but I'm not
> really interested in that topic.. You'll have to find someone else to
> debate that topic - maybe Faulkner or John Hartnett. I do see a big
> difference between saying something is highly improbable and impossible.
> 10^-99 is very tiny, but still it's huge compared to absolute zero. If
> someone says that something is "impossible", this is an act of irrational
> faith. When someone says that, they're saying that they are omniscient
> enough to declare that something *will never happen, not even once*
> anywhere in our huge Universe. I'm not that arrogant.
>
> Best
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
>
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Sep 29, 11:58 AM
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
Richard Carrier certainly uses Bayes' Theorem to assign probability numbers to past events. I'm no math wiz so I'm not conformable with what he's doing. Thus, I refuse to assign exact numerical probabilities to historic events. I will only say that the probabilities of miracles in the past are below 1%, but not 0. Again, I'm being qualitative and not quantitative here. I see no evidence of miracles occurring today, but I'm not so arrogant to claim that they never happen; that is, I won't say that they are impossible.
I would encourage you to talk with Dr. Faulkner about geocentrism if you have not done so already.
Best
Kevin
On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 11:47 AM Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX> wrote:
The thing is, assessing a possibility as "10^-99" and at the same time not "0" depends on a mathematical quantification of the possibility.
But such things would need an empirical basis, which is precisely what a study of history does not provide for assessing miracles as "10^-99" - more like from 10^-3 to 10^-6 or sth.
Assessing the probability as "10^-99" without that is basically just a "modest" way of saying and at the same time not saying "0."
Thank you for correcting your resumé of Faulkner with direct quotes. I obviously disagree with those too. On Joshua 10 he has probably just seen verses 13 and 14 without a close analysis of verse 12. And as a Catholic, I deeply disagree with his view of St. Augustine - whose City of God was my intro to, once again after a backslide on the issue after conversion, taking the Biblical chronology seriously.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 29, 3:30 PM
to me
I would say that he is heavily misusing Bayes.
He is also at least selectively ignorant about the relevant era:
somewhere else : Richard Carrier Claimed Critical Thinking was Rare Back Then ...
https://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2013/01/richard-carrier-clamed-critical.html
Gullibility is not just about falling for frauds, it's also about falling for people who heavily overrate themselves and in fact do ludicrous blunders.
Hans Georg Lundahl
PS - hope you don't take the remark as an insult!/HGL
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Sep 29, 3:39 PM
to Hans-Georg
As I stated, in my previous email, I'm not comfortable with how Carrier uses Bayes' Theorem. I also don't accept Carrier's mythicist arguments for Jesus. So, I don't believe everything he says. Nevertheless, you should read Carrier (2014) and look at his arguments and his supporting references.
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 29, 4:19 PM
to me
It is not even available on Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Sorry.
Btw, from his blog (which I followed some time ago), I recall he has reevalued Testimonium Flavianum./HGL
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Thu, Sep 29, 4:23 PM
to Hans-Georg
Thanks for trying Hans. This is incredible. I had no problem getting books for free through Interlibrary loan from Grand Forks, North Dakota and this is not possible in the capital of world power? Wow. The library services in France look like something from the Third World.
Take care,
Kevin
Re: Re: Re: Re: Posts
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl <XXXXXXXX>
Thu, Sep 29, 5:06 PM
to me
There are two problems.
1) France and US have different book references;
2) in US the Creation vs Evolution, Myth / Human Only Rabbi / God-Man debates are on, in France one is actively trying to mute them.
Silverman and Finkelstein have just a tiny presence, Carrier or Faulkner - forget it./HGL
Footnote added to Henke (2022b) and its quoations
Kevin R. Henke <kevin.r.henke@gmail.com>
Fri, Nov 25, 2:23 PM (7 days ago)
to Hans-Georg
Hi Hans
[personal greetings omitted] After reading Exodus 2:4, I saw that Moses' sister supposedly witnessed Pharaoh's daughter taking Moses. This is relevant to a statement that I made in Section .5.3 of Henke (2022b) and my later quotations of that section. I've added a footnote to them. Sorry for my oversight. I wanted to let you know whenever I need to make corrections or additions to my previous essays.
Again, my up-to-date essays are listed here:
https://sites.google.com/site/respondingtocreationism/lundahl
Best as always
Kevin
Re: Footnote added to Henke (2022b) and its quoations
Inbox
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat, Nov 26, 6:33 AM (6 days ago)
to me
Thank you very much for the update!
[personal greetings omitted]
I might do an extra response to Henke2022b, section 5:3.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Several personal email exchanges from November 2022 having nothing to do with the debate were omitted.