Mr. Lundahl Continues to Ignore the Genesis Knowledge Gap and He Still Doesn’t Have Any Evidence that Moses Ever Existed
Kevin R. Henke
November 29, 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 comments:
“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. [original emphasis in bold; my emphasis in bold and italics]
Lundahl (2022y) comments on various parts of the above quotation from Henke (2022bx). I responded to these comments starting in Henke (2022Lu). This is how Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022y) responded to my bolded and italicized statement on his “his kind of evidence”’:
“Hesiod told in the poem itself how it was inspired by the meeting with the Muses, or rather how they sang most of it to him. The one evidence he showed of meeting the muses was being able to write two long poems (Theogony and the more bitter one Works and Days). Attributing such an ability to a gift from the muses was traditional, that's why he gave the Muses that credit. And that traditional attribution is worth as much as attributing Gerbert's comprehension of Arabic Numerals to his having made a deal with the Devil. Which people made in his day.
Moses by contrast parted the Red Sea.
And it is a very remarcable feat for such a story to have not been known to those in his or some given later time, and then to be accepted as normally transmitted history by the successors of that particular time.
Because, unlike the gap between St. Philomena's time and the time when the 19th C. nun had a vision, unlike the gap between the time when Moroni is supposed to have buried the golden tablets and the time when Joseph Smith is supposed to have "recovered" them, there is no time qualitatively comparable gap available from Moses' time to times when we know Moses was accepted as historic. At each point, within the time span, there is at least an account of people believing Moses to be historical. How come?”
Unless multiple poems and other manuscripts can be demonstrated to be independent and contemporary accounts, they are not appropriate “evidence” for the reality of a past event. The story involving the Muses is probably just made-up along with most other Greco-Roman mythology. If Mr. Lundahl disagrees, he has the burden of evidence to demonstrate that these myths were real events because skepticism is the default position (Henke 2022dv). No one should not be accepting any of these stories at face value.
As discussed in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), there’s no evidence that Moses ever parted the Red Sea, the Sea of Reeds, or any other sea. The Exodus never happened as described in the Bible. If Mr. Lundahl wants people to believe in Exodus, he must produce good archeological or other evidence from outside of the Bible. In Henke (2022gh), I extensively quoted with permission the following statements from Reinfort (2019) about the far-fetched Exodus story:
”Exodus 12:37 mentions that 600,000 Israelite men left Egypt. When women and children are counted, the Israelite population would have easily exceeded one million during the Exodus. The Sinai is slightly smaller (60,000 km2) than the U.S. state of West Virginia (62,755 km2). That is, a single line of only 250,000 people with one person per meter would easily stretch across the Sinai from Suez, Egypt to the Gaza Strip. The annuals of the Egyptian conqueror Thutmose III states that he was able to march his troops 250 km across the Sinai in only 10 days (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 60). As few as one million Israelites wandering over 40 years in the Sinai should have left a lot of archeological evidence. Yet, not a scrap of evidence was found during the reign of Ramesses II or his immediate predecessors or successors (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, pp. 62-63). However, evidence of pastoral activity was found in the Sinai during the 3rd millennium BC and during the later Hellenistic and Byzantine periods (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). Archeologists located the campsites of Kadesh-barnea and Ezion-geber mentioned in the Bible, yet no evidence of Late Bronze Age Israelites were found there (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). On the basis of the archeological evidence and the total lack of evidence at the campsite locations mentioned in Numbers 33, as well as Kadesh-barnea and Ezion-geber, Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, p. 63) and other secular archeologists have concluded that the Exodus did not occur as described in the Bible. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, p. 1) conclude that the Exodus, as well as many other events described in the Old Testament, were not miracles from God, but products of the human imagination. The Israelites did not come from Egypt and violently conquer Canaan, they emerged from among the Canaanites (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 118).”
Rather than the far-fetched accounts in Exodus ever happening, it’s far more likely that some ancient Israelite “prophet(s)” made up the stories with the blessing of the Jerusalem Temple priests and the Israelite king. The people then accepted these lies and deceptions as “history” because their leaders insisted that they believe in Adam, Moses and the rest of the Pentateuch as part of the national religion. If they didn’t, their lives were threatened (Deuteronomy 17:2-7). The ancient Israelites then passed down this fake history to their future generations. People often make up stories that portray their nation, ancient heroes and gods as better than their rivals. Again, William Tell with its Swiss nationalism is a good example of this (Henke 2022ek).
Like Genesis 3, these “prophet(s)” set the Exodus stories centuries earlier. No one would have been alive in the prophets’ time to refute their fictional stories of the distant past. I further discuss this hypothesis for the origin of the Pentateuch in Henke (2022LL). Again, this hypothesis is far more probable than any claims that Genesis 3 with its Talking Snake and magic fruit trees or the Exodus ever happened. Also, why does Mr. Lundahl continue to ignore the critical Pentateuch Knowledge Gap between when the Pentateuch was written and our earliest copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Henke 2022iL; Henke 2022in)? That is, there is no reliable chain of custody (transmission) between the time when the Pentateuch was written and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This Knowledge Gap is just as bad as the gaps with the Book of Mormon and the St. Philomena Hoax.
References:
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.
Reinfort, E.M. 2019. Young-Universe Creationism Versus Naturalism: Volume 1: Introduction and Background Issues, Amazon Digital Services, Kindle Edition.