Mr. Lundahl’s Division of Genesis between “Prophecy” and “History” is Arbitrary and Senseless
Kevin R. Henke
November 30, 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:
“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.
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]
*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.
Lundahl (2022y) comments on various parts of Henke (2022bx). I am replying to these comments starting in Henke (2022Lu). In response to my bolded and italicized statement, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022y) says the following in red:
“Henke (2022bx) states: ‘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).’
Lundahl (2022y) briefly states: ‘The division is not very arbitrary.”
My current reply: No. As I explained in Henke (2022jy), Mr. Lundahl’s division of Genesis into “prophecy” and “history” in chapter 2 is arbitrary and worthless, and does absolutely nothing to promote Hypothesis #1:
“Mr. Lundahl has no evidence whatsoever that any of the supposed “eyewitnesses” mentioned in Genesis actually existed or that they actually witnessed any of the stories mentioned in the book. He has no evidence that Moses ever existed or ever received any reliable written documents and oral traditions going back to Adam. In Henke (2022ew), I further compare the four hypotheses from Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b), and argue that Mr. Lundahl’s favorite Hypothesis (#1) is arbitrary and worthless, supernatural-based Hypothesis #2 isn’t any better and that either Hypotheses #3 or #4 are very likely:
“Although both conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews know that Genesis 1:1-2:14 must have come from God, notice that there is no verse in Genesis 1:1-2:14 indicating that Moses “was in the spirit” or that he had a dream or vision when he saw the creation. Moses or any other author isn’t even mentioned anywhere in Genesis. The context by itself indicates that either Genesis 1:1-2:14 is a work of fiction or a revelation from God. There are also plenty of other verses in Genesis, where there were no human witnesses and the information must have come from God or an angel according to both conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews. For example, how did Moses know about the conversation between God and the angels in Genesis 11:6-7 unless God or one of his angels told someone? Advocates of Hypothesis #1 have to arbitrarily divide up Genesis into sections obtained by visions/God speaking and other sections originating from unsubstantiated, fallible and human-transmitted records. Advocates of Hypothesis #2 would argue that supporters of Hypothesis #1 are no different than those that divided up Genesis into J, E, and P sources. Supporters of Hypothesis #1 simply have no evidence whatsoever that Moses had any human written or oral sources for Genesis.
Advocates of Hypothesis #2 could also argue that God could have given Moses the information in Genesis 5 just like the ghost of St. Philomena gave her birth date to a 19th century nun without any of the information being passed down through the centuries by fallible-human hands [Henke 2022es]. Of course, secularists would argue that Hypothesis #2 has no more evidence than Hypothesis #1. If Mr. Lundahl had been using the Method of the Multiple Working Hypotheses as he should have been doing (Strahler 1999, pp. 19-20; Henke 2022eu), he would have no reason to favor Hypothesis #1 over #2. To be exact, he would be favoring Hypotheses #3 and #4.”
Mr. Lundahl offers nothing but groundless speculation about the origin of Genesis. He also ignores the Genesis Knowledge Gap, where we simply do not know how the book might have been reedited and manipulated between the time it was written and our earliest known copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Henke 2022iL). This manipulation explains why Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch obviously had multiple authors (Finkelstein and Silverman 2001, pp. 10-14). In summary, Mr. Lundahl’s favored Hypothesis #1 is no better than Hypothesis #2, and both #1 and #2 are far less probable than either Hypothesis #3 or #4 (Henke 2022b).”
Henke (2022bx) continues: ‘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.’
Lundahl (2022y) continues: ‘No, but the implication of accepting Genesis as historical (apart from the facts that are prophetically known) is that Moses had access to histories from back then.
Joseph getting his father to Egypt is just 215 years before the Exodus, that is just 135 years before Moses was born. How do I know the 1830 Revolution leading to Lewis Philip of Orleans becoming King of the French? If you see a very summarised account of me growing up, there is perhaps no actual mention of that being on the history program at school, or of my having an encyclopedia like Nordisk Familjebok ... the point is, how I know this is more likely to be lost than the implication that I know it. Once you admit Joseph, it's hard to stop earlier than Abraham, and Abraham could very easily have had accounts from the protagonists, if they were as short (and therefore as easy to memorise even orally) as the pieces between Genesis 2:5 and his own mention in Genesis 11's latest verses.’”
My current reply: There’s no evidence that Moses, Joseph or Abraham ever existed (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, pp. 33-36, 48-71, 67). Mr. Lundahl is just stringing baseless stories together about Abraham, Joseph, and Moses that were probably made up centuries after they supposedly lived. These stories don’t form any reliable chain of custody (transmission). As I further argued in Henke (2022ev), even IF Moses existed, there’s no evidence that he had access to any reliable and historical documents describing the events in Genesis:
“Conservative Christians often complain that no Q or JEPD manuscripts have ever been found. They also complain that there’s no evidence of the Mormon’s golden plates. They have a point. No manuscript copies of these hypothetical documents have ever been found. However, where is the evidence that Moses ever had any documents describing the events of Genesis as promoted in Hypothesis #1?”
That’s why any supporters of Hypothesis #2 would argue that Moses had to have gotten Genesis directly from God through “prophecy” (Henke 2022b). Hypothesis #1 is no better than Hypothesis #2, and both Hypotheses #1 and #2 are inferior to Hypotheses #3 and #4. It’s far more likely that Genesis with its far fetched and silly stories was just made up thousands of years after the supposed events (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001; Henke 2022LL).
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.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.