Peer-Reviewed Science is Not Perfect, but It’s Better than Mr. Lundahl’s “First Known Audience” Scam and Bible Stories about Talking Animals and Magic Fruit Trees
Kevin R. Henke
November 26, 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 with his typical vague and unreferenced rambling:
“Mr. Henke trusts peer reviewed papers. Because any peer reviewed paper may contain lies and misinterpretations among authentic rational conclusions, Mr. Henke's approach to understanding the present is totally irrational and sloppy.
That was parody. But seriously, the credit Mr. Henke is giving peer reviewers, I am giving the first audience and any later audience : not to let total fact free nonsense pass. In neither area does this automatically lead to infallibility, though certain both papers and historic texts can be infallible : Ineffabilis Deus is infallible as Stephan Borgehammar's How the Holy Cross was Found isn't, and the Bible is infallible as Homer's accounts are not. This doesn't add up to a total scepsis against either Borgehammar or Homer.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Our Lady of Mercy
24.IX.2022
Publié par Hans Georg Lundahl à 14:57
Libellés : Kevin R. Henke“
I fully admit that scientific peer-review is not perfect, but it’s the best system that we have for verifying claims, including claims about past events. Rather than recognizing the great value of peer-review, Mr. Lundahl blindly trusts his “first known audience” scheme, which is a totally inadequate approach to investigating the past. Mr. Lundahl fails to realize that large numbers of people (his “first known audience”) may be easily deceived into believing lies and misinterpretations (see Henke 2022Lg; Henke 2022bh, Henke 2022cc, Henke 2022dn, Henke 2022ee, Henke 2022ek, Henke 2022fL, Henke 2022gc, Henke 2022gg, Henke 2022jt, Henke 2022ju).
Mr. Lundahl does not have a shred of evidence to claim that the Bible is infallible. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) have demonstrated that much of the Old Testament cannot be trusted and Carrier (2014) has shown that a lot of the New Testament is fiction or otherwise unreliable.
Reference:
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
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.
Price, Robert M. 2005. The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth is Stranger than Fiction: Prometheus: Amherst, NY, USA, 296pp.