No Reason to Accept Untrustworthy Traditions
Kevin R. Henke
September 21, 2022
In Henke (2022bn), I said the following:
“Lundahl (2022k) makes the following comments about point #5 in Henke (2022b) about who wrote Genesis 3 and when:
“First known audience considered it to have been written by Moses, and considered Genesis 1 to be based on a vision granted him on Sinai. They are not known to have made a parallel claim of prophecy for the parts that could be historically transmitted. This means, Genesis was finished as book after the Exodus event, and by Moses, who had access to revelation for a limited part of it and historic traditions and documents for the rest.”
“Here, Mr. Lundahl is again making groundless proclamations that have no evidential support whatsoever. So, where’s the archeological evidence that Moses ever lived? If he did happen to exist, how do we know that he wrote anything? How do we know when Moses lived, if he lived at all? Why should we trust the traditions of ancient Israelites? How can we trust the beliefs of individuals that lived about a thousand years after Moses supposedly lived and many more thousands of years after Adam supposedly lived? To be exact, the archaeological results in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) and other 21st century sources provide good evidence on the origin of ancient Israel and the Moses story is baseless. Lundahl (2022k) needs to look at the evidence and not just blindly trust groundless Hebrew speculation and myths. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, pp. 10-24) and many other experts also present good evidence that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors and not all at once. Various individuals, including conservative Christians and secular archeologists (e.g., Finkelstein and Silberman 2001), have thrown out dates on when the Pentateuch or various parts of it were written. None of these dates are well verified.” [my emphasis]
In Lundahl (2022x), Mr. Lundahl continues to respond to my statements in Henke (2022bn) by trying to answer my bolded question with the following comment:
“Because we trust our own traditions and should generally trust traditions overall.”
No! That’s a terrible reason to trust any tradition. There’s no reason to trust any tradition unless there’s good evidence and reasons to support it. We should not trust the William Tell story just because a large number of people believe it. We should not trust the St. Philomena story just because a large number of people believe it. We should not trust astrology just because a large number of people believe it. We should not trust the Moses and the Resurrection of Jesus stories just because a large number of people believe them… Groundless and irrational traditions should be abandoned.
Reference:
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.