Fiction Occurs in Many Different Genres, Including Deceitful Texts that Pretend to be History. Mr. Lundahl Continues to Fail to Recognize that He has the Burden of Evidence with Genesis
Kevin R. Henke
November 7, 2022
In Henke (2022b), I argued that people often lie, misinterpret and make up stories, and these are factors that undermine Mr. Lundahl’s “first known audience” scheme, which he uses in an attempt to separate history from fiction. In response, Lundahl (2022k) made the following comments:
“Let's go through Henke's principled objections to my theorem, "if the earliest known audience took it as history, it is a historic, not a fictional text" - here:
1. People lie and make up stories.
Those are two different things. A liar also makes up his story on some level, changing real for made up, where that is strategic for a purpose, but a poet makes up all of his story.
I think this is in fact the key principle Henke should ponder before answering any more. So much of his argument depends, so far, on equating Spiderman with Book of Mormon and with Russian reports on who it was who liberated Prague and how after most of WW-II was over.”
In Henke (2022bj), I gave the following response to Lundahl (2022k):
“Yes, poets often write total fiction and the author of Spiderman admits that it’s fiction. However, both Mr. Lundahl and I would agree that the Book of Mormon, Genesis 3, and Russian news reports are meant to be factual and not fiction and not poetry. The question then becomes, are they actually factual or just a lot of lies? To avoid being deceived by such lies, we need good evidence. The Mormons have no good evidence for the book of Mormon, Mr. Lundahl has none for Genesis 3, and Russian news reports are also highly untrustworthy.
It’s also important to recognize that liars in the religious and political realms may not simply take a real account and partially change it into something deceptive. They may totally make up a story so that there’s no truth in it whatsoever. As examples, I see no kernel of truth whatsoever in the Book of Mormon or in the Scientology Xenu story.
Mr. Lundahl also overlooks another critical point here. People often lie and make up stories for a variety of reasons. In the political and religious realms, money and/or power are often primary reasons for why politicians and religious leaders lie. In other cases, politicians may lie in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution. In Henke (2022b), I further stated:
“The most common reasons for why ‘prophets’ invent false stories are for power and/or money. I think Kat Kerr invents stories to get attention and contributions. Joseph Smith Jr. used Mormonism to gain wealth and power, including the power to fornicate with whomever he wanted. No doubt, the ancient Israelite priests found the Pentateuch useful in gaining a lot of power and tithes and offerings that would otherwise have gone to the temples of Baal and other competing religions. The ancient Israelite priests were especially able to gain wealth and power when they had the support of Hezekiah and other powerful kings backing up their religion with force. As I explained in Henke (2022a), unlike the Talking Snake, we have external evidence that King Hezekiah actually existed.”
I think that Mr. Lundahl seriously underestimates how much disinformation is out there and how many millions of people often accept these falsehoods as fact. Interestingly, Lewis (1960, p. 159) makes an interesting statement that is generally correct:
“Lies, exaggerations, misunderstandings, and hearsay make up perhaps more than half of all that is said and written in the world.”
One could quibble about the percentage of spoken and written material that turns out to be false. Nevertheless, Lewis (1960) is qualitatively correct here. The internet, newspapers, magazines, and the Bible are full of false information. So, lies are widespread and serious problems. The only way to combat lies is to be initially skeptical of every claim and to immediately demand evidence when the claim is first presented (Henke 2022dv; Henke 2022eu). This is where peer-reviewed science publications may help to provide reliable evidence and separate fact from fiction. Peer-reviewed science journals are certainly not inerrant, but when multiple peer-reviewed articles obtain the same results using different procedures, these results are generally more trustworthy than anything given by TV preachers or the Bible.” [italics in original; my emphasis in bold]
Lundahl (2022v) then responds to my bolded paragraph:
“Shall I finally take this as an indirect admission that works of fiction received by a community as such are not likely to be within that community rebooted into the status of texts of history? Because that in its turn shows the principle that first known audience can be a standin for first audience. But now to the examples he admits as not starting out even as fiction.
To avoid being deceived, we have good evidence that Book of Mormon was not successfully foisted on anyone as simply normally remembered history, but it has the status, in itself highly suspect of "forgotten and spectacularily recovered history."
We also have good evidence that Russians and Ukraineans have on top levels had a training under the Soviet empire, which was a master of lies.
We therefore know the source to be a suspect one.
What is Mr. Henke's evidence (or proof!) that Genesis 3 at any time had the status of spectacularily recovered but previously lost history? Or that any actual author of it (including the purported one, Moses) was a master of lies? So far none.
Once the category fiction is away, the next question is : good history or bad history, fact, fraud or frivolous explanations? My position has so far been "fact" and Mr. Henke has provided no argument for either fraud or frivolous explanation.”
Of course, there are many different types of fiction. Although the Jehovah’s Witnesses think that the parable of the faithful and discrete slave in Matthew 24:45-47 is a “prophecy” about their governing body, most communities may indeed be unlikely to misinterpret parables, fables, most poetry, and other very obvious works of fiction as history or “prophecy.” Nevertheless, Mr. Lundahl has trouble realizing that there are other works of fiction that are mistaken for history or deceitfully pretend to be history, such as the New Testament Gospels (Carrier 2014, pp. 387-509). This happens according to Hypotheses #3 and #4 in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), and I gave examples in these two essays. The story of William Tell is another example of a work of fiction being misinterpreted as “history” (Henke 2022ek). Warnick (2004) presents compelling evidence that the William Tell story started out as the Bluetooth fable in Scandinavia. The story eventually got to Switzerland, where it was misinterpreted as a Swiss historical account – also see Mitchell and Mitchell (1970). This is where Mr. Lundahl has difficulty separating fiction from reality, and where his “earliest known audience” scheme is useless to him because the evidence indicates that these deceptive or misinterpreted works have been mistakenly taken as “history” for centuries or even millennia and way back to their “earliest known audiences.”
Again, I agree with Mr. Lundahl that the Book of Mormon is a forgery. However, as I have repeatedly stated in Henke 2022db and my other essays, the Mormons don’t accept Mr. Lundahl’s arguments about “normally remembered history.” They think that the Book of Mormon was miraculously preserved and is more reliable than the Bible, which was handed down through fallible and manipulative human hands over millennia of copying copies of copies of copies….
We certainly know that Putin and other Russian leaders are liars, but the Russian people don’t have access to the far more reliable and diverse news sources that we have in the West. The Russian “first known audience” largely only hears the Russian propaganda and many of them believe their government’s lies. Unless a positive revolution occurs in Russia, it’s very likely that members of this deceived Russian “first known audience” will be the ones to write the Russian “history” of “saint” Putin and his “righteous crusade” in Ukraine.
As for Genesis 3, Mr. Lundahl continues to misunderstand the meaning of “proof” when investigating past events. Under the scientific method, we look for evidence and not “proof” (Henke 2022jf). In this context, proof means 100% certainty, which does not exist in science and history (also see Albert 1986). Furthermore, Mr. Lundahl fails to realize that he has the burden of evidence to back up his baseless claims:
1. That Moses existed (which is doubtful – see Finkelstein and Silberman 2001).
2. That Moses wrote Genesis 3, even though the book of Genesis is anonymous.
3. That Moses had documents and reliable oral traditions as Mr. Lundahl claims with Hypothesis #1 (Henke 2022b; Henke 2022gh).
4. That Genesis 3 and the rest of Pentateuch were adequately preserved from the time they were written to at least our earliest known copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (this is highly improbable, Tov 2001; Finkelstein and Silberman 2001). Mr. Lundahl is inappropriately ignoring the Genesis Knowledge gap – Henke 2022iL; Henke 2022in), which undermines any confidence that the Pentateuch was adequately preserved from the time that it was written.
Mr. Lundahl’s approach to science and history is all wrong (Henke 2022eu). I don’t have to demonstrate that Xenu did not exist, the Scientologists have to demonstrate with good external evidence that he did exist. I don’t have to demonstrate that Moroni did not exist, the Mormons have to demonstrate with good external evidence that he existed. I don’t have to demonstrate that the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 did not exist, Mr. Lundahl has to demonstrate with good external evidence that he existed. I don’t have to demonstrate that Moses did not exist, Mr. Lundahl has to demonstrate with good external evidence that he existed and wrote Genesis 3. I don’t have to demonstrate that Adam did not exist, Mr. Lundahl has to demonstrate with good external evidence that he did. I don’t have to demonstrate that Moses did not have records and reliable traditions going back to Adam, Mr. Lundahl has to demonstrate with good external evidence that he did. I don’t have to demonstrate that the chain of custody between when Genesis was written and our earliest known copies is not complete and reliable, Mr. Lundahl has to demonstrate that the chain of custody is complete and reliable. I don’t have to demonstrate to an individual that his house is not haunted, he has to demonstrate with good evidence that it is. It is very difficult to demonstrate a negative hypothesis in the scientific method and that’s why the scientific method places the burden of evidence on those like, the Scientologists, Mormons and Mr. Lundahl, that make extraordinary claims. We should all strive for good and trustworthy history (Henke 2022jb), but it’s not found in Scientology, the Book of Mormon or Genesis 1-11.
Because Moses probably did not exist (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001), it was the actual authors of Genesis that are the “masters of lies.” By just looking at the geological evidence for the past 4.5 billion years and the evidence from astronomy, we can clearly see the lies in Genesis 1-11 (Babinski 2010; Tobin 2010; Dalrymple 1991; Prothero 2007; Strahler 1999).
References:
Albert, L.H. 1986. “’Scientific’ Creationism as a Pseudoscience”, Creation/Evolution Journal, v. 6, no. 2, pp. 25-34.
Babinski, E. 2010. “The Cosmology of the Bible” in J.W. Loftus (ed.) The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails: Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, pp. 109-147.
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
Dalrymple, G.B. 1991. The Age of the Earth: Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 474 pp.
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.
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp
Mitchell, R.E. and J.P. Mitchell. 1970. “Schiller’s William Tell: A Forkloristic Perspective”, The Journal of American Forklore, January – March, v. 83, n. 327, pp. 44-52.
Prothero, D.R. 2007. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters: Cambridge University Press: New York, NY, USA, 381pp.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.
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.
Tov, E. 2001. Textural Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd revised ed., Fortress Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 456pp.
Warnick, R. 2004. “In Search of William Tell”, Smithsonian Magazine: August, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-search-of-william-tell-2198511/ (accessed July 24, 2022).