External Evidence is Needed to Successfully Separate Out History from Plausible Stories and Outright Lies
Kevin R. Henke
November 25, 2022
In Henke 2022br2, I made the following statements:
“Lundahl (2022L) then comments on my bolded and italicized claims in Henke (2022b):
“This involves two things, from my perspective, as I disagree with the first, and agree with the second, with a qualification:
(1) unless a claim in an ancient history is confirmed with independent external evidence, either in another manuscript or from archeology, there’s no reason to accept it as reliable history.
This is where I diagree, and which would make Alexander's carreere unknowable. And lots of other things.
(2) There’s a big difference between an historical claim and a reliable historical claim.
Indeed. but the difference is bigger between any historical claim and straightforward fiction. This is key to my argument.
The rest actually is a padding on the routine token methodology of historians (dealing with ancient history).”
Once more, our readers have to endure Mr. Lundahl’s irrational stubbornness just because he won’t use a spell checker and modern spelling. Nevertheless, on point (1), Lundahl (2022L) is failing to realize that it’s more important to have a few historical accounts that are known to be reliable than blindly accepting a large number of claims in old manuscripts about Alexander the Great, Moses and other characters that could be either historical or imaginary. Quality of information is more important than quantity of information when it comes to history and most other disciplines. If someone claims that he has enough information to write three history books, but if none of that information has been confirmed with external evidence, then his books are not histories, but nothing more than large collections of unverified rumors and stories.
As I explained in Henke (2022b), archeology is very important in confirming the reliability of ancient written accounts and the written accounts can provide important insights into archeological discoveries and even tell archeologists where to look for possible evidence. Lundahl (2022L) is telling his readers to just blindly believe whatever the Bible or even accounts about Alexander the Great tell them. Because any document may contain lies and misinterpretations among authentic historical accounts, Mr. Lundahl’s approach to understanding the past is totally irrational and sloppy.
On point (2), I certainly see a huge difference between the archeologically confirmed history of Alexander the Great as I discussed in Henke (2022b) and the silly cartoon and probable fictional story of Genesis 3. Nevertheless, sometimes authors deliberately write fictional stories to make them look as realistic as possible. They do such a good job that many of their readers are mistakenly convinced that these novels are factual, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin or The DaVinci Code. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was such a realistic work of fiction that it had a huge impact on changing attitudes towards slavery. Also, both secularists and conservative Christians have written extensive rebuttals to the commonly held myth that The DaVinci Code is history (e.g., Price 2005). Contrary to Mr. Lundahl’s “earliest known audience” charade, sometimes novels can be so realistic that they spur people to social justice or mislead them. Lundahl (2022L) needs to be far more careful in separating out what is probably history from what is likely fiction.” [italics original; my emphasis in bold]
Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022x) then replies to my bolded statement:
“The criteria I use are such that they have been deemed, by pretty much everyone, sufficient for Alexander and others.
Large numbers of facts are in fact key to any intelligent sifting of facts from false facts (mostly not fictions, but frauds or misunderstandings).
Just because Mr. Lundahl and supposedly “pretty much everyone” use certain criteria to investigate the past that does not mean that their criteria are suitable. Instead of using his “first known audience” and other worthless schemes, Mr. Lundahl should be using the scientific method to investigate the past (Strahler 1999) (Henke 2022ju). Archeological or other external evidence is needed to verify any claim about the past. With any group of claims about past events, good external evidence is required to separate out the accurate claims from those that are merely plausible or outright lies. I successfully did this with Alexander the Great in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b).
References:
Price, R.M. 2005. The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth is Stranger than Fiction: Prometheus: Amherst, New York, USA, 296pp.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.