Who’s Doing the Speculating?
Kevin R. Henke
November 22, 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 Henke (2022bn) by poorly addressing the above bolded statement:
“Myth is illdefined, and speculation is one pretended other source for texts - for instance Genesis 3 - than receiving them as history. How is Mr. Henke arguing that the source for Genesis 3 is speculation?
By asking me to blindly trust his judgement rather than "blindly" trust what he has failed to provide an identification as speculation for.”
By myth, I mean a made-up story; that is, a work of fiction. As the Oxford English Dictionary, Mr. Lundahl’s favorite, says in definition 2a of myth: “a widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception” and “a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.”
Once more, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022x) fails to realize that he has the burden of evidence and that he must demonstrate that Genesis 3 actually happened. With Genesis 3 or any other story, the initial response must be skepticism (Henke 2022cg) until someone produces good external evidence to indicate that it really happened. Considering that we have no evidence for the existence of angels, demons, a Talking Snake and magic fruit trees, it’s highly likely that Genesis 3 is a far-fetched myth and not an historical account. As I explained in Henke (2022b) and my other essays, hypotheses #3 and #4 are far more probable explanations for Genesis 3 than either hypothesis #1 or #2. Now, I’m not asking Mr. Lundahl to blindly trust my judgement or anyone else’s. I’m asking that if Mr. Lundahl wants others and me to believe that Genesis 3 and other Bible stories really happened, he must present good evidence to back up those Bible stories. Otherwise, he’s just blindly accepting the groundless and far-fetched speculations of the ancient writers of Genesis 3.
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.