Unfortunately, Lies are Often Not Exposed, At Least Not Often in Time to Prevent Irreversible Damage
Kevin R. Henke
November 8, 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]
In my last two essays, I responded to Mr. Lundahl’s (2022v) comments on the first two paragraphs in the above quotation from Henke (2022bj). Lundahl (2022v) then responds to my next paragraph in the above quotation, which is in bold:
“And lies get exposed. When what a given generation has inherited is by it presented as history, and no previous generation is known to have taken it for fiction, the salient point is : why could someone succeed in so imposing it, why was his lie successful?
Making up a lie doesn't equal making up a successful one. In Denmark, when I was homeless, I found out Norwegians are more popular than Swedes. Both Denmark and Norway were occupied, both had some kind of resistance, and Sweden was neutral, sometimes giving Germany material support, and this is taken with some animosity from some. So when my Danish at a meeting with someone wasn't good enough to be taken as that of a native, I was asked where I was from, and I tried saying I was Norwegian. Only partially a lie, since my paternal grandmother is a native Norwegian, but a deception nonetheless in this context. I knew no Norwegian soccer players or players of association football. I knew exactly one Norwegian actor, namely the one who had been broadcasted in Sweden and most probably Denmark as well, that being Fleksnes (who's the character, I had no idea the actor's real name is Rolv Wesenlund! - It's like referring to Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn!) ... yes, wiki states Fleksnes Fataliteter was also broadcast in Denmark, so, knowing Fleksnes was no valid proof of being Norwegian. I ended up admitting to being a Swede, and pleaded that Norwegian was not a total lie, since I am one quarter such.
So, "someone made up a lie at some point and for some reason, mankind being naturally very gullible, this was accepted" is pretty much like saying "I don't have the proof yet, but it's upcoming, honest!" - to which the appropriate answer would be : OK, tell me when you have your actual case!”
People often lie to gain power in religious and political groups (e.g., Price 2012, pp. 82-83), make money by selling forgeries and to influence religious and political doctrines (e.g., Ehrman 2013, pp. 182-190; Henke 2022es). Unfortunately, it’s highly likely that a lot of lies are never exposed. If they are eventually exposed, it may be centuries or even millennia later. Many scholars, for example Ehrman (2013, pp. 182-190), convincingly argue that Ephesians is a forgery; that is, Paul never wrote it. Someone lying and pretending to be Paul wrote it to influence doctrines in the early Church, just like the Letter to the Laodiceans (Price 2006, pp. 455-457) and many other forgeries that were done in Paul’s name. Yet, Ehrman (2013, pp. 121-122) complements the forger of Ephesians for producing a work that was superficially so realistic that it took centuries to expose his lies through careful examination of the writing style and theology in Ephesians. It also took archeologists until the late 20th century to expose the lies in Exodus (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001). Although Price (2017, pp. 202-203) thinks that Polycarp forged the Pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, in reality, the evidence is too long gone to usually obtain any definite conclusions about the identities of the forgers. Although we may not always be able to identify the forgers, their works may not withstand careful scrutiny.
People often incorrectly believe whatever political or religious claims that their elders tell them. It’s only through skepticism and hard work that people discover that long-held traditions may be absolutely wrong. Long-held and popular traditions are not necessarily correct and they must viewed with skepticism until good evidence demonstrates that they are actually accurate.
In the paragraph with italics at the end of the above quotation from Lundahl (2022v), Mr. Lundahl continues to spout several misunderstandings about evidence and investigating the past. First of all, investigators don’t look for “proof” in science and history (Henke 2022jf). Secondly, Mr. Lundahl, and not the skeptics, has the burden of evidence to demonstrate that a story is history (Henke 2022jv). Third, as in the cases of Ephesians, Genesis, various documents and works of art, we don’t need to identify the forger to recognize a forgery.
References:
Ehrman, B.D. 2013. Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics: Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 628pp.
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.
Price, R.M. 2006. The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formulative Texts: Signature Books: Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 1209pp.
Price, R.M. 2012. The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul: Signature Books: Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 561pp.
Price, R.M. 2017. Holy Fable: Volume II: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith: Mindvendor Press, Coppell, TX, USA, 449pp.