Mr. Lundahl has the Burden of Evidence to Demonstrate that Any of the Stories about Romulus or the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 Ever Happened
Kevin R. Henke
November 27, 2022
Lundahl (2022y) is a relatively long response to statements that I made in Henke (2022bx), which is entitled: “Lundahl (2022L) Rambles on and Fails to Make Any Mythology Look Believable.” In Henke (2022bx), I made the following statements:
“In this essay, I’ll just comment on the following four paragraphs from Lundahl (2022L):
“This very disingeniously bypasses my distinction between "divine myth" and "heroic legend" - and the ways in which either is supposed to be in any way known by those back then believing them.
I confirm that no one should believe Chaos gave birth to Gaia, Eros, Erebos and Nyx, and Gaia then to Ouranos. It is also not in any usual way a historic claim. The historic claim involved is, Nine Muses revealed this to Hesiod. And to Hesiod alone.
This is a very far call from Achilles facing battle after battle with no wound - which was explained by his mother being a goddess who had gotten half way through the process of making him into a god. Francisco Franco faced battle after battle on the Rif, and was never wounded, and Muslims on the Rif had their fairly superstitious stories about why this was. We should believe Franco wasn't wounded, we should not believe in the superstitions on how you become what is called "kugelfest" in German. Dito with the difference between Achilles and his lack of wounds, and the "divine mother" - similarily, believing Romulus founded Rome doesn't involve believing Mars was his actual physical father or even existed, and believing "Hercules was a strong man, not a god / not God" does not involve believing Zeus was his father or even existed. Unlike Gaia and Ouranos, Achilles, Romulus and Hercules have evidence of the type I classify as historical.
Now, Hesiod getting a revelation from the Muses is confirmed by no miracles, but Moses getting revelations from God is confirmed by miracle after miracle - according to the kind of evidence I consider as historical. The amount of material in Genesis that depends on Moses' getting a revelation is basically the six days account - the rest involve human observers and an at least theoretical lineage of memory, and this involves Genesis 3. Very few aspects would need Moses or some other previous person to be prophetically known - it would involve the identity of the four rivers and the divine plan behind the confusion of languages at Babel - that behind driving Adam and Eve out could have been known directly to them.”
Because I am a geologist, I was actually thinking of Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, when I wrote the bolded sentence in the above quotation from Henke (2022b). Nevertheless, frankly, I don’t care about Mr. Lundahl’s efforts in Lundahl (2022L) to divide questionable and unreliable stories into “divine myths” and “heroic legends.” Unless Mr. Lundahl actually has archeological or other external evidence that demonstrates that any of the ancient characters mentioned in Lundahl (2022L) actually lived, he just might as well be dividing Superman, Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck into his categories. People have always believed in urban legends, myths, and stories that have no evidence of ever happening. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Hawaiians and Hebrews had questionable or outright false beliefs, and so do modern Christians, Jews, Mormons and Scientologists. Mr. Lundahl should be separating the individual stories into likely fiction, plausible, and history supported by archeology and other external evidence instead of wasting time on a worthless classification system involving “divine myths” and “heroic legends.”
It’s good that Mr. Lundahl does not believe that the god Mars exists or that anything supernatural happened to Francisco Franco when he was in battle. We certainly have good historical evidence that Spanish general and dictator Francisco Franco lived. Sometimes soldiers fortunately escape being wounded or killed in battle. That’s not unusual. My dad fortunately was never harmed by the V1 and V2 rockets that exploded around him during WWII. However, just because Franco lived, that does not mean that we should automatically believe every story about him, no matter how realistic it sounds or how well it might fit into one of Mr. Lundahl’s “historical” categories. Sometimes heroic war stories are just made up. Nevertheless, what does the reality of Franco have to do with the Achilles’ story? Where’s the evidence that Achilles actually lived? Where’s the evidence that Moses ever existed?
Although it’s certainly possible that someone named Romulus actually lived and was involved in starting Rome, we need to be skeptical of his existence until evidence comes forward to demonstrate that he was not a myth. We also need to carefully separate any possible historical evidence for Romulus from any myths about him. The same thing is true about Hercules. Where’s the external evidence that he existed? Why should we automatically believe the stories associated with Hercules any more than Samson in the book of Judges? Again, with any story, skepticism should be the first reaction and anyone advocating for these stories needs to immediately accompany their advocacy with good external evidence and not esoteric and worthless rambling about “divine myths”, “heroic legends” and “first known audiences.” Lundahl (2022L) has failed to demonstrate that we should believe in Moses any more than the god Mars.
Next, Lundahl (2022L) makes the following groundless claims:
“Now, Hesiod getting a revelation from the Muses is confirmed by no miracles, but Moses getting revelations from God is confirmed by miracle after miracle - according to the kind of evidence I consider as historical. The amount of material in Genesis that depends on Moses' getting a revelation is basically the six days account - the rest involve human observers and an at least theoretical lineage of memory, and this involves Genesis 3. Very few aspects would need Moses or some other previous person to be prophetically known - it would involve the identity of the four rivers and the divine plan behind the confusion of languages at Babel - that behind driving Adam and Eve out could have been known directly to them.” [my emphasis]
Mr. Lundahl’s “kind of evidence” is totally worthless in separating history from ancient myths. Why should we believe that Moses got revelations from God any more than the groundless stories about Hesiod getting inspiration from Muses? How do we know that Moses even existed? Even if he did exist, how do we know that Moses ever received any revelations from God any more than Joseph Smith, Jr. or Kenneth Copeland? Where’s the evidence of these supposed “miracle after miracle” events confirming these groundless revelations? Why should Mr. Lundahl consider anything about Moses to be the “kind of evidence” that he considers “historical”? The claims about Moses in the Bible are not historical evidence of any kind. They’re just groundless claims. Until any good evidence comes forward, why should we believe any of these stories about Achilles, Hercules, Samson, Moses, Romulus, etc.? Mr. Lundahl is totally empty-handed. In reality, he simply wants people to believe what he says because the Bible says so. This is circular reasoning at its worst (Henke 2022ab). Groundless claims about miracles cannot be used to demonstrate other groundless claims about Moses existing and receiving revelations from God.
Lundahl (2022L) then continues:
“Now, Hesiod getting a revelation from the Muses is confirmed by no miracles, but Moses getting revelations from God is confirmed by miracle after miracle - according to the kind of evidence I consider as historical. The amount of material in Genesis that depends on Moses' getting a revelation is basically the six days account - the rest involve human observers and an at least theoretical lineage of memory, and this involves Genesis 3. Very few aspects would need Moses or some other previous person to be prophetically known - it would involve the identity of the four rivers and the divine plan behind the confusion of languages at Babel [Genesis 11:6-7]- that behind driving Adam and Eve out could have been known directly to them.” [my emphasis]
As I also discussed in Henke (2022b), Mr. Lundahl’s proclamations in Lundahl (2022c) and here in Lundahl (2022L) do absolutely nothing to demonstrate that anything in Genesis is history whether it was given by God entirely through visions (Hypothesis #2 as discussed in Henke 2022a and Henke 2022b) or by arbitrarily dividing Genesis into sections with limited visions from God and the rest supposedly through human transmission (Hypothesis #1). Even the internal evidence in Genesis and Exodus fails to support Hypothesis #1 as I explained in Henke (2022b). That is, how did Moses know that Aaron was his brother?* How did Moses know anything about his family, ancestors or anything that supposedly happened in Genesis when he was supposedly given up for adoption as an infant? Everyone agrees that Moses was not physically there to witness anything in Genesis, if anything mentioned in Genesis ever happened at all. Now, the Mormons have a bogus, but simple, chain of custody for the book of Mormon, which is: Mormon à Joseph Smith, Jr. à The public. But, what is the chain of custody for Genesis? Lundahl (2022m) speculates about the descendants of Adam memorizing oral traditions and effectively passing them down until they were eventually written down. Again, Lundahl (2022m) has no evidence whatsoever that these biblical characters ever existed or ever memorized anything. Now, even if Adam, Noah and others wrote down what they saw and gave these documents to their descendants as speculated by Hypothesis #1, who gave these documents to Moses? Where’s the confirmed chain of custody? There’s no evidence of Adam, Noah or other Genesis characters writing any document any more than there’s any evidence for the Golden plates of the Book of Mormon.
*It turns out that Moses’ sister supposedly saw Pharoah’s daughter take Moses (Exodus 2:4). If this event ever happened, it could explain how Moses knew that Aaron was his brother.
Advocates of Hypothesis #2 would groundlessly speculate that no matter what, God must have intervened to tell Moses what happened in Genesis through visions or audible confirmation. Advocates of Hypotheses #3 or #4 would argue that there’s not a shred of evidence to support any of the far-fetched claims about the Garden of Eden, the Talking Snake, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the Nephilim, etc. in Genesis.
Now, false stories or legends often become associated with real people. The Oxford English Dictionary, Mr. Lundahl’s favorite, provides the following definition of legend:
“A traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated; a fable, a myth.”
So, legends are either unreliable or false stories. They may become associated with famous individuals that actually lived. For example, George Washington was a real person. However, the famous story about him chopping down the cherry tree is probably a legend. Another legend that George Washington saw an angelic vision about the future of the United States at Valley Forge is also a likely work of fiction. Yet, these stories are widely believed by the American people along with the myths that the Europeans believed that the world was flat before Christopher Columbus and that Columbus actually landed in what is now the United States (see Henke 2022dg). These are examples of how lies and propaganda can widely deceive people and why Mr. Lundahl’s “earliest known audience” charade is not reliable evidence of history.” [original emphasis in bold; my emphasis in bold and italics]
Lundahl (2022y) then comments on various parts of this section. Starting with Henke (2022Lu), I’m responding to his comments in Lundahl (2022y). To separate his statements from mine, I’ve added identifiers to the following quotation from Lundahl (2022y):
“Henke (2022bx) states in bold and italics above: ‘Although it’s certainly possible that someone named Romulus actually lived and was involved in starting Rome, we need to be skeptical of his existence until evidence comes forward to demonstrate that he was not a myth. We also need to carefully separate any possible historical evidence for Romulus from any myths about him.’
Lundahl (2022y): ‘The point is that the "myth" as given in Livy is the historical evidence.
The parts involving Mars being, obviously, a misunderstanding of the events on some level. Like the Arabs' misunderstanding of Franco or the Achaeans' or Trojans' of Achilles.’
In Henke (2022Lf), I cited the Oxford English Dictionary, Mr. Lundahl’s favorite, and I stated that according to definition 2a, a myth is: “a widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception” and “a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.” According to this definition, which I use, myths have absolutely nothing to do with history or historical evidence. If a historical individual has a likely false story associated with him/her, I would call that a legend (Henke 2022bx), such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Nevertheless, I also recognize that many individuals treat legend and myth as synonyms as shown in the above definition of legend from the Oxford English Dictionary as quoted in Henke (2022bx).
Anyway, if Mr. Lundahl wants to claim that there is any truth whatsoever in the stories about Romulus or the Talking Snake of Genesis 3, he has the burden of evidence to demonstrate that. I don’t have the burden of evidence in these situations and no one should accept any of these stories as being real as long as there’s no external evidence to support them.