The St. Philomena Hoax is an Example of the Roman Catholic Church Abusing Archeology
Kevin R. Henke
November 24, 2022
Lundahl (2022x) extensively discusses my essay, Henke (2022bq), entitled: “Mr. Lundahl Still Fails to Respond to Secular Hypotheses #3 and #4, which Rationally Explain the Origin of the Talking Snake Myth of Genesis 3.” In Henke (2022bq), I stated the following:
“Again, point #8 mentions secular Hypotheses #3 and #4 from Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), which explain the origin of the Talking Snake myth of Genesis 3. Lundahl (2022k) makes the following comments about point #8:
“I already refuted that claim, his hypotheses #3 and #4 basically involving a process where made up stories (comedy's like Menaechmi, novels like Apuleius' Golden Ass, comic books like Spiderman, fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings) for no reason at all get to be considered as historically transmitted arguably true stories.”
No. As I explained in Henke (2022b) and my other essays, Lundahl (2022c) and his other essays totally failed to refute Hypotheses #3 and #4. Also, in the above quotation from Lundahl (2022k) on point #8, Mr. Lundahl is totally confusing and improperly equating Hypothesis #4 with #3. In his paragraph, Lundahl (2022k) doesn’t realize that the two hypotheses have very different origins. As explained in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), Hypothesis #3 states that the Talking Snake story arose because a group of people misinterpreted a campfire story or another work of fiction and thought that the story actually happened. On a smaller scale, this was also seen in one of President Reagan’s speeches, where he and his staff mistook a work of fiction about WWII as an actual event (Henke 2022a; 2022b). Fortunately, President Reagan’s mistake was quickly caught by fact checkers in the media before it could spread and become widely believed as an urban legend. In ancient times, fast checking and the rebuttal of misinterpretations was not so efficient. As I explain in Henke (2022a; 2022b; 2022ek), there have always been cases where large groups of people have misinterpreted works of fiction as something that actually happened.
While Hypothesis #3 involves people making accidental misinterpretations, in Hypothesis #4 people are deliberately deceived with propaganda and other lies by influential people. That is, in Hypothesis #4, powerful religious and/or political leaders deliberately deceive a large number of people through oral or written transmissions (Henke 2022a; 2022b; 2022es). Currently, this type of deception is being seen in how a majority of Russians believe the propaganda from Putin’s government on how Russia is supposedly “liberating” Ukraine from NAZIs. Also, see Henke (2022cc) for discussions on how tens of millions of Americans currently believe the lies that President Trump actually won the 2020 election. The fantasy involving St. Philomena is another prime example of how Hypothesis #4 can occur (Henke 2022es). A delusional 19th century nun invents a biography about an early saint and the 19th century Roman Catholic Church, as well as Mr. Lundahl and some other current conservative Catholics, blindly accept and believe that the lies are real.
Even if Mr. Lundahl eventually manages to dismiss Hypothesis #3 as a likely explanation for Genesis 3, he still has to dismiss Hypothesis #4, find acceptable evidence for his preferred Hypothesis #1 and then demonstrate that it’s more likely than Hypothesis #2. So far, he has not succeeded in any of his lofty goals. All of his talk about “first known audiences” is worthless rhetoric.” [my emphasis]
In my previous essays, Henke (2022Lj) through Henke (2022Lm), I responded to Mr. Lundahl’s (2022x) comments on some of my statements in the above quotation from Henke (2022bq). Here, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022x) responds to my bolded statement about the St. Philomena Hoax in the above quotation from Henke (2022bq):
“We are very aware that St. Philomena was not transmitted by tradition from her own times. Weren't you the one giving high credits to archaeology, Mr. Henke?
As far as I recall the story, we deal with a combination of archaeology and prophecy. And it is not clear when Genesis 3 would have been so presented.”
In general, I do give high credits to professional archeologists and their work (e.g., Finkelstein and Silberman 2001; Dever 2005). However, as I explained in Henke 2022es, the St. Philomena Hoax is a prime example of the 19th century Roman Catholic Church misrepresenting and making up false stories (“prophecies”) about some archeological discoveries. The instigators and Vatican perpetrators of this Hoax were not archeologists.
Considering the long Knowledge Gap associated with the Pentateuch (Henke 2022iL; Henke 2022go), Hypothesis #4 in Henke (2022a; 2022b) states that the same deceptive process that produced the false prophecies of the St. Philomena Hoax could also explain the origin of Genesis 3. Both Hypotheses #3 and #4 are far more probable than Genesis 3 with its Talking Snake and fruit trees actually being history as Hypotheses #1 and #2 claim. To be exact, under Hypothesis #2, all of Genesis and not just 1:1-2:4 is “recovered history” just like the Book of Mormon and the St. Philomena Hoax.
References:
Dever, W.G. 2005. Did God Have a Wife?: Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 344pp.
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.