Still No Evidence of a Talking Snake. Mr. Lundahl Still Can’t Understand that People Make Up Stories about Their Origins and that His “Earliest Known Audience” and “Cultural Memory” Scams are Totally Untrustworthy
Kevin R. Henke
September 15, 2022
In Henke (2022b), I summarize my conclusions on Alexander the Great:
“When looking at the archeological evidence in total, Mr. Lundahl also needs to ask himself why a Greek name (Alexandros) was inscribed numerous times in temples in Egypt, mentioned as a king in bureaucratic documents from central Asia, his military exploits discussed in Babylonian tablets and his name on countless coins spread throughout the region. Even without the five ancient histories, it’s obvious that there was a king named Alexander living in the 4th century BC that had a lot of wealth and power that extended from Greece and Egypt into Central Asia as demonstrated in Henke (2022a). The people in Egypt were simply not going to allow just any individual to walk into their temples and inscribe his name and image on at least 22 places (Bosche-Puche and Moje 2015). No one would put the name Alexandros on countless coins from India to the Mediterranean unless a powerful leader paid for it and had the power to enforce the order. Meanwhile, Mr. Lundahl can’t find a shred of evidence to support his belief in a Talking Snake and Moses.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022p) then comments on the bolded section:
“Talking Snake : in historicity of text. Historicity of text : in assessment of earliest known audience. Mosaic authorship : in assessment of earliest known audience. Precisely as with five texts, and before these the First Maccabees, speaking of Alexander as a Greek who conquered Persia with Egypt, Syria and Babylon.”
As I have repeatedly stated with numerous arguments and examples in Henke (2022a), Henke (2022b) and my other essays, Mr. Lundahl’s arguments for the historicity of Moses and the Talking Snake of Genesis are worthless. Any faith in the existence of Moses and the historicity of Genesis 3 is based on wishful thinking. His “earliest known audience” and “cultural memory” scams are totally unreliable indicators of what is historical and what is myth (e.g., Henke 2022b; Henke 2022dn; Henke 2022es). People frequently fabricate stories about the origins of their communities to make themselves feel special and their gods supreme. Again, Mr. Lundahl has no archeological or external evidence to support his claims about Moses or Genesis. To be exact, the archeological evidence in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), Tobin (2010) and other sources indicate that the Old Testament is full of myths. While there is plenty of archeological evidence to support the existence of Alexander the Great, Moses and the cartoonish Talking Snake of Genesis 3 do not have any. Hypotheses #3 and #4 of Henke (2022a) are far more rational than Hypotheses #1 or #2 in explaining the origin of the Talking Snake.
References:
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.
Tobin, P. 2010. “The Bible and Modern Scholarship” in J.W. Loftus (ed.) The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails: Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, pp. 148-180.