Lundahl (2022t) Continues to Take the Wrong Approach to Ancient Documents and History
Kevin R. Henke
October 26, 2022
In Henke (2022bh) and Henke (2022b), I stated the following:
“Mr. Lundahl fails to realize that ancient histories by themselves cannot be trusted, especially if they were written centuries or millennia after the supposed event that they are describing or if the documents are copies of copies of copies of copies... and not the originals Even if an ancient history happens to be an original copy describing an event that occurred at the time that the document was written, unless a claim in an ancient history is confirmed with independent external evidence, either in another manuscript or from archeology, there’s no reason to accept it as reliable history. There’s a big difference between an historical claim and a reliable historical claim.” [my original emphasis in italics; my emphasis in bold]
Lundahl (2022t) then comments on my bolded statements:
“Mr. Henke fails to realie that ancient histories by themselves can be trusted unless there is a specific reason to mistrust them.”
NO! This is exactly the wrong approach to any claim about ancient history or any other topic. The initial reaction to all claims must be skepticism (Henke 2022dv). A claim is never accepted on face value. Fortunately, responsible journalists ignore Mr. Lundahl’s dreadful advice and actively confirm their stories before believing and publishing them rather than just believing them until any evidence just happens to arise to show that they are wrong. Even though confirmation does not always expose erroneous claims, claims must still be confirmed with external and independent evidence before they’re accepted. Otherwise, we’ve seen how fake news has ruined reputations and even started wars (i.e., yellow journalism).
Historians must also carefully sort out myths from what actually happened. Our history must consist of well-verified and high-quality claims. Quality is more important than quantity. We don’t just accept whatever someone wrote down because they can easily lie or misinterpret what happened. People tend to be biased and often distort or leave out relevant materials to push their agendas. This is exactly why external independent confirmation is needed. This is exactly why scientists must use the Method of the Multiple Working Hypotheses to avoid biases (Strahler 1999, pp. 19-20). This is exactly why the archeology in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) and many other studies are so important. These archeological studies exposed the falsehoods in the Old Testament that were taken as reliable by millions of people over the centuries just because they used the flawed approach of Mr. Lundahl, which consists of just believing the stories in the Old Testament until there were specific reasons to mistrust them. Now that Mr. Lundahl and others finally have the evidence to mistrust the Old Testament, they should join those that have been skeptical all along. Yet, I doubt that many of them will accept the available evidence and seriously abandon their precious biblical dogmas even though these dogmas have now been refuted by multiple archeological studies.
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.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.