My Replies to Lundahl (2022aa) on Section 5.3 of Henke (2022b)
Kevin R. Henke
December 4, 2022
On November 25, 2022, I added a footnote to Section 5.3 of Henke (2022b) and a number of my other essays that quoted that Section. I notified Mr. Lundahl about the footnote in an email on November 25, 2022 and he acknowledged my email on November 26, 2022 and indicated that he might write a response.
Section 5.3 with the bolded * footnote in orange states:
“5.3. Poor Vision: Lundahl’s (2022c) Unsuccessful Attempt to Promote Hypothesis #1 Over Hypothesis #2
Hypothesis #2 in Henke (2022a) again states:
“Moses saw Genesis 1-3 and perhaps most or even all of everything else in Genesis through visions given by God. There didn’t need to be a continuous human transmission of information from Adam to Moses. Visions from God would not be open to errors unlike written or oral transmissions from Adam to Moses.”
The visions from God would not necessarily be just visual. Advocates of Hypothesis #2 would argue that any vision could have had an audible component.
Hypothesis #2 is a potential explanation that some conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews might embrace instead of Hypothesis #1. Lundahl (2022c) does not like Hypothesis #2. Obviously, any extensive visions of Genesis in Hypothesis #2 sound too much like the lying visions given by Joseph Smith Jr. or the delusions of “prophets” like Kat Kerr, and Mr. Lundahl does not want Genesis to be based on false claims of visions like the Book of Mormon or the Candy Land in Heaven promoted by Kat Kerr (Knox 2021). Lundahl (2022c) even admits this when he denigrates Hypothesis #2 as a “parody” and “ideally suited for those not believing it.” In other words, he admits that Hypothesis #2 allows supporters of Hypotheses #3 and #4 to argue that Genesis is based on false claims of visions just like the Book of Mormon.
When refuting Hypothesis #2, Lundahl (2022c) assumes that Moses wrote Genesis as required by Hypothesis #1. Normally, quoting the Bible to defend the Bible would be blatant and fallacious circular reasoning. How can Mr. Lundahl demonstrate that a Talking Snake existed in Genesis 3 by invoking another unsubstantiated character; namely Moses? He’s attempting to use one unsupported story to justify another. However, because any supporter of Hypothesis #2 would agree with him that Moses wrote Genesis, Lundahl (2022c) can get away with using this fallacy to attack Hypothesis #2.
Although he does not like the idea that Genesis is based on visions, Lundahl (2022c) admits that under Hypothesis #1, God must have given Moses visions for him to write down Genesis 1:1-2:4 because people supposedly hadn’t been created yet. So, Lundahl (2022c) is forced to admit that Moses received visions from God in order to write at least Genesis 1:1-2:4. But why stop with the magic visions at Genesis 2:4? If God gave Genesis 1:1-2:4 as a vision to Moses, why would a conservative Christian or an Orthodox Jew that supports Hypothesis #2 want to stop there? Why isn’t Hypothesis #2 a valid possibility for conservative Christians or Orthodox Jews? Clearly, Lundahl (2022c) wants at least some human transmission of data involved in the origin of Genesis even though he does not have a shred of historical evidence to support such a claim. So, how does anyone that believes in Hypothesis #1, like Mr. Lundahl, objectively decide which verses in Genesis came from visions given to Moses by God and which were handed down by Adam to Moses?
As a side note, Lundahl (2022c) makes a special comment about Genesis 1:28 in the following poorly worded statement:
“The blessing in Genesis 1:28 would have been there, but was omitted since given in God's vision to Moses.”
So, where is “there”? Apparently, Lundahl (2022c) is claiming that Genesis 1:28 would have been “there” (in chapter 2 of Genesis), except that he thinks that it was part of God’s vision to Moses in chapter 1. In other words, Genesis 1:1-2:4 supposedly came from visions from God, whereas everything else after that supposedly came from records starting with Adam. However, does Lundahl (2022c) have any objective evidence for this arbitrary division of Genesis? Of course, he doesn’t.
In contrast to this magical mess, if Genesis 3 is nothing more than a lie, then Hypotheses #3 and #4 totally avoid the problem of whether Adam wrote down Genesis 3 or if Moses saw it in a vision. There is no need to speculate about how Adam’s records got passed down to Moses. There is no need to invoke any magic to explain the origins of Genesis 1-3 and the following chapters. There is no need to defend the existence of a magical Talking Snake or fruit trees. Some individuals simply made up the stories about events that supposedly happened centuries to thousands of years before they lived. All that was needed for this to happen is an imaginative person with ink and a writing surface, and a gullible and superstitious audience, all of which have always been in abundant supply.
Lundahl (2022c) correctly recognizes that whenever information is transferred, errors occur. All four hypotheses would have trouble with transmission errors as scribes copy copies of copies of copies … over the centuries or millennia. However, advocates of Hypothesis #2, could argue that the number of errors would be minimized if Moses got Genesis 3 from inerrant visions rather than relying on human transmissions from Adam. Nevertheless, under Hypotheses #3 and #4, Genesis 3 started out as a lie and transmission errors on lies can’t degrade their reliability when they didn’t have any reliability to begin with.
So, how does Mr. Lundahl know that any information that might have been passed down from Adam to Moses was not miscopied or corrupted with false information? To “solve” this problem, he simply assumes the old and groundless “God did it!” excuse and claims in Lundahl (2022c) that God would have protected any transmission from errors as part of the way that he inspired Moses. Invoking “God did it!” magic is a flippant excuse that claims to solve every problem, when in fact, it doesn’t deal with evidence and utterly fails to genuinely solve any problem. Of course, this baseless excuse might be acceptable to conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews, but it would not be acceptable to secular individuals that favor Hypotheses #3 and/or #4. Yet, even for a supporter of Hypothesis #2, this approach does not deal with the overriding critical questions: Just because God could have preserved the integrity of any information passed down from Adam to Moses, how does this demonstrate that this transmission ever occurred? Again, how does a supporter of Hypothesis #1 objectively decide which verses after Genesis 2:4 came from Adam and other human authors, and which came directly to Moses in visions from God?
In an unsuccessful attempt to refute Hypothesis #2, Lundahl (2022c) again uses circular reasoning and quotes a number of genealogy verses from Exodus 6 and Genesis. Setting aside the improbable ages in these baseless genealogies, he simply claims without a shred of evidence that the possibility that God partially restored Moses’ family history through visions is “not credible.” His exact poorly worded statements from Lundahl (2022c) are:
“So, Moses had no natural track of his great-grandfather and grand-father, but he had his family history restored to him by visions of God ... not credible. It is equally not credible that he knew of the march through the Red Sea by a vision of God, rather than by his own eyes and those of thousands of Israelites - if it had been in a vision given him, why would the other Israelites have believed what they did not know themselves?”
However, a defender of Hypothesis #2 would find his response totally inadequate and might ask:
· Without divine inspiration from God to identify his relatives and restore his genealogy, how did Moses know who his siblings, parents, grandparents and great grandparents were when he was adopted as an infant by Pharoah’s daughter? How did Moses reliably know that Aaron was his brother unless God restored his genealogy and let Moses know who is ancestors and relatives were? *
· Visions could have an audible component that would allow God to transmit genealogies to Moses. Certainly, God was capable of talking to Moses at any time and giving him any information. So, why would God be incapable of giving Moses his genealogy just like he gave him the Law of Moses and any other textural “the LORD saith…” information? Why do biblical genealogies have to be historical accounts passed down by humans from generation to generation?
· How do the verses dealing with the genealogy from Jacob to Moses that Lundahl (2022c) cites from Exodus 6 and Genesis 46 and 29:34 demonstrate that Genesis 3 came from historical records and not a vision?
· Where’s the evidence that these Adam to Moses genealogical records ever existed and that Moses used them? Are there copies of these Adam to Moses genealogy records in the libraries of Heaven along with Moroni’s Golden Plates and the JEPD documents?
· Defenders of Hypothesis #2 would not argue that the Exodus from Egypt and other events personally witnessed by Moses were visions. If Moses was there, he would have had the eyewitness testimony to write about them under God’s inspiration. During his lifetime, under inspiration from God, Moses could have selected and recorded the eyewitness testimonies of other reliable adults. However, how do defenders of Hypothesis #1 objectively decide which verses in Genesis, which were before Moses and his colleagues were even born, came from human records and which came from visions?
*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.
Besides the unlikely ages mentioned in Exodus 6, secularists would argue that groundless genealogies are also present in the Book of Mormon (e.g., again Ether 1:6-32). Anyone can claim that they receive messages from God and then make up genealogies to “prove” it. If Lundahl (2022c) and any other supporters of Hypotheses #1 or #2 want to cite genealogies from the Bible, they first have to demonstrate with external and contemporary evidence that these genealogies are authentic and not works of fiction like the ones in the Book of Mormon.
Lundahl (2022c) has utterly failed to demonstrate that Hypothesis #2 is inferior and less likely than Hypothesis #1. Although both Hypotheses #1 and #2 rely on groundless magic and are highly improbable, at least advocates of Hypothesis #2 could do a fairly good job of objectively separating verses in the Pentateuch that supposedly came from visions from those that came from the supposed first-hand testimonies of inspired human witnesses. Whatever Moses experienced as an adult, such as the crossing of the Red Sea, or anything he heard from other reliable adults with God’s approval would be eyewitness accounts from him in the Pentateuch. Under Hypothesis #2, everything before Moses was born; that is, Genesis, would have been transmitted by visions from God without the need of any unsubstantiated claims of written records going back to Adam.
Lundahl (2022b) raises additional objections to Hypothesis #2. He complains that advocates of Hypothesis #2 are going against a tradition that Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation and that they tend to be Old-Earth creationists:
“One more: proponents of #2 for Genesis 3 go against tradition, as the tradition says that Moses had a vision of the Six Days, and they are also likely to be Old Earthers, trying to motivate why an event purportedly 2500 - 3000 years before Moses could in fact have been known if Adam was rather 250 000 BP.”
However, whose tradition is this? Where did it come from? How do we know that this tradition is reliable? Why should the favored prejudices (traditions) of past generations be necessarily trusted? Even if Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation, how does that rule out Moses having additional visions that included Genesis 3? Also, why do advocates of Hypothesis #2 necessarily have to believe in Old-Earth creationism? Couldn’t advocates of Hypothesis #2 argue that God could have given Moses visions of any event in the past at any time? The arguments in Lundahl (2022b) and Lundahl (2022c) are worthless and would not convince any advocate of Hypothesis #2. Furthermore, advocates of Hypotheses #3 and/or #4 would identify any “traditions” about Moses seeing visions as probably nothing more than groundless made-up stories that became widely circulated and popular over the centuries.” [my bold and italics]
When I originally asked the question: “How did Moses reliably know that Aaron was his brother unless God restored his genealogy and let Moses know who is ancestors and relatives were?”, I overlooked Exodus 2:4, which indicates that the infant Moses’ sister supposedly witnessed Pharoah’s daughter rescuing Moses. That’s explained in the November 25, 2022 footnote. According to the story, Moses’ family knew what happened to him, so that his family would be able to contact him and introduce themselves once Moses became an adult. Hypothetically, that would have allowed Moses to know that Aaron was his brother without God having to tell him. Exodus 2:4 gives Mr. Lundahl’s Hypothesis #1 of Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b) an advantage over Hypothesis #2.
Now, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022aa) does not deal with the issue of Moses’ relatives supposedly knowing what happened to him. Instead, he extensively comments on other issues shown above in bold and italics at the end of Section 5.3. Here is what Mr. Lundahl states in red in Lundahl (2022aa):
Lundahl (2022b) raises additional objections to Hypothesis #2. He complains that advocates of Hypothesis #2 are going against a tradition that Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation and that they tend to be Old-Earth creationists:
Citation of Lundahl (2022b)
“One more: proponents of #2 for Genesis 3 go against tradition, as the tradition says that Moses had a vision of the Six Days, and they are also likely to be Old Earthers, trying to motivate why an event purportedly 2500 - 3000 years before Moses could in fact have been known if Adam was rather 250 000 BP.”
However, whose tradition is this? Where did it come from? How do we know that this tradition is reliable? Why should the favored prejudices (traditions) of past generations be necessarily trusted? Even if Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation, how does that rule out Moses having additional visions that included Genesis 3? Also, why do advocates of Hypothesis #2 necessarily have to believe in Old-Earth creationism? Couldn’t advocates of Hypothesis #2 argue that God could have given Moses visions of any event in the past at any time? The arguments in Lundahl (2022b) and Lundahl (2022c) are worthless and would not convince any advocate of Hypothesis #2. Furthermore, advocates of Hypotheses #3 and/or #4 would identify any “traditions” about Moses seeing visions as probably nothing more than groundless made-up stories that became widely circulated and popular over the centuries.
For clarity, for those who have missed earlier parts. Henke's four hypotheses for the epistemic origin of Genesis 3 are:
· 1) tradition from Adam and Eve
· 2) revelation to Moses
· 3) campfire story
· 4) fraudulent claim to prophecy
He is obviously favouring 3 or 4 over both 1 and 2, and in context, he is challenging why I prefer 1 over 2. He already did so in Henke2022a.
My argument is cited, and I will analyse it as two arguments:
I) proponents of #2 for Genesis 3 go against tradition, as the tradition says that Moses had a vision of the Six Days,
My point being, perhaps stated somewhat elliptically (at least in this citation), there is no tradition at all of Moses having a vision of the rest of Genesis. If Exodus 6 makes Levi his greatgrandfather, it makes much more sense for Moses to know about Levi from family tradition than from a vision. And Abraham is Levi's greatgrandfather, and his story begins to be told in detail already in Genesis 12, starting in some final verses of Genesis 11. But previous parts of Genesis 11 purport at least to be a genealogy, and the usual way to get genealogies is for generations to remember who they are and transmit that to ensuing generations.
So, it would make in some way sense for all of the preceding to be tradition, but this is impossible insofar as Adam as observer of events was absent totally from "the beginning" and days 1 through 5 and even the beginning of day 6. The obvious options for (most of) the six days are prophecy or made up or faked prophecy - only hypotheses 2, 3 or 4 are possible for Day 4.
And we do have a tradition (at least in book of Jubilees) that Moses had a vision of the six days. My main point however is, this tradition does NOT cover anything beyond the six days account. Even chapter 2 involves Adam being present before some things happen before his eyes. And the verses from Genesis 2:5 to when Adam is a conscious human being and an adult male are such that God could have briefly revealed them to Adam himself.
The end of the six day account, God blessing Adam and Eve with fertility and God blessing the Sabbath, would also have been available to Adam as observer, but were arguably (if Moses had a vision of the six days) transferred to the end point of this vision.
From the Haydock comment to Genesis 1, verse 4:
Good; beautiful and convenient:---he divided light by giving it qualities incompatible with darkness, which is not any thing substantial, and therefore Moses does not say it was created. C.
In other words, Moses was given complete understanding of the process of creation - at minimum a vision. You can believe this tradition is false, and his info on creation is worthless, but you can hardly deny this is the tradition about it.
II) and they are also likely to be Old Earthers, trying to motivate why an event purportedly 2500 - 3000 years before Moses could in fact have been known if Adam was rather 250 000 BP
I say this from experience with Catholic Old Earthers. I have been saying "Genesis 3 is pretty important for Mariology, right?" - "Yes" - "So, if as you believe Adam lived 40 000 years ago or more, how was it recalled correctly?" - "It was revealed to Moses." - "Well, there is no tradition of it."
My point is, the people trying to pinpoint Genesis 3 to vision rather than tradition are inventing a vision that is NOT in the tradition.
However, whose tradition is this?
Arguably one Hebrew tradition that predates the split between Jews and Christians, and arguably even the split between Samaritans and Jews, though in this case I cannot point to a specific expression of this tradition among Samaritans.
Where did it come from?
The tradition by implication points to coming from Moses. As long as it cannot be traced to a later and complex fraud (which would need to be argued), I'll leave it at that.
How do we know that this tradition is reliable?
How do we "know" that any tradition is reliable? By trusting it. History is ultimately about what tradition you trust, in the case of there being conflicting ones.
I may not be able to articulate why I trust the Hebrew tradition above the Babylonian one or the Khemetic (Egyptian one), but I do.
I can say why I trust tradition above reconstruction. This brings us to the next point:
Why should the favored prejudices (traditions) of past generations be necessarily trusted?
I prefer the favoured prejudice of a past generation above that of the present one, when it comes to past events. I do so on a lot of other issues too, but when it comes to past events, it's pretty obvious why. They were closer to them. And what we get from "scientific" reconstruction is not a near mathematical certitude trumping any past prejudices, we just get a sophisticated expression of present prejudices (including, since Hume, too often "miracles don't happen").
So, I would not go as far as "necessarily" but I would definitely say "usually, unless there is a major argument to the contrary."
In the case of Flood stories, that of Babylon and that of the Bible cannot both be true. It cannot both be true that one god was annoyed people were making too much noise and decided to send a flood, and his twin, being a trixter, and having had the task of creating men, saved some by warning Utnapishtim (or Noah) AND at the same time one and the same just God (neither peevish, nor trixter) decided to send the Flood because society was turning too horrible on a world wide scale, and also to save one family which stood out against the horrors of their times. It cannot both be true that the vessel was a giant version of the coracle, and that it was a wood box of tanker proportions. One can argue that the wood box of tanker proportions was adequate to save all kinds of animals, while the coracle wouldn't have been. Or one can argue that the coracle is likelier in a local Flood, and good luck explaining how Shuruppak, some tens of metres above the Persian Gulf (34?) was flooded locally and the flood rose to a mount Nisir that is upstreams and is 2588 meters above the Persian Gulf! But the ultimate reason for my preference is kind of what world I feel we live in. The one God who is just is more credible than one peevish lord of gods and one devious second in command who sometimes saves us from the peevishness. And obviously, the adherents of this other theology also say the Flood was world wide.
Even if Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation, how does that rule out Moses having additional visions that included Genesis 3?
It's not the presence of the vision of the six days, but the total absence of a tradition of such a vision for Genesis 3 that rules this out.
Couldn’t advocates of Hypothesis #2 argue that God could have given Moses visions of any event in the past at any time?
That God could do it is no argument to assume He did so without there being any indication of it either in the Bible or in traditions around it.
Furthermore, advocates of Hypotheses #3 and/or #4 would identify any “traditions” about Moses seeing visions as probably nothing more than groundless made-up stories that became widely circulated and popular over the centuries.
Indeed. One extra reason not to add to the visions Moses had. Burning bush and subsequent commands leading Moses and through him Israel, check. Ten Commandments, twice, check. Six Days, perhaps in connection with Sabbath commandment, check. All legislation passages involving "God spoke to Moses and said," check. Revelations about what Israel was to do, about Miriam and Aaron, about what he could expect for himself (seeing God from the back), check. But a vision of Genesis 3 - it's neither in Exodus, nor in the traditions surrounding any of it.
Finally, one more:
The arguments in Lundahl (2022b) and Lundahl (2022c) are worthless and would not convince any advocate of Hypothesis #2.
I haven't seen any, except the Old Earther I met in a Catholic charity where he was volunteering and I was received. And even he didn't claim to have given the matter totally thorough thought.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Sosthenes
28.XI.2022
Apud Corinthum natalis sancti Sosthenis, ex beati Pauli Apostoli discipulis; cujus mentionem facit idem Apostolus Corinthiis scribens. Ipse autem Sosthenes, ex principe Synagogae conversus ad Christum, fidei suae primordia, ante Gallionem Proconsulem acriter verberatus, praeclaro initio consecravit.
PS, the Old Earther, even Evolutionist, though a Catholic, it was in 2019, it would seem, if you read French:
New blog on the kid : Quatre évolutionnistes rencontrés
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2019/06/quatre-evolutionnistes-rencontres.html
Enjoy!/HGL
Publié par Hans Georg Lundahl à 12:39
Libellés : Kevin R. Henke”
Mr. Lundahl places a lot of trust in tradition and he shouldn’t. For example, Lundahl (2022aa) says:
“I) proponents of #2 for Genesis 3 go against tradition, as the tradition says that Moses had a vision of the Six Days,”
Like Mr. Lundahl with Hypothesis #1, the proponents of Hypothesis #2 in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b) also accept the baseless tradition that Moses had a vision of the Six Days of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2. The proponents of Hypothesis #2 just argue that the visions did not stop with Genesis 2, but continued for all the events in Genesis. Yet, as I explained in Henke (2022Lc), there’s no reason to trust any of these traditions unless they’re supported by external evidence.
Later in Lundahl (2022aa), he provides more information on the source of Moses’ supposed Six Day vision:
“And we do have a tradition (at least in book of Jubilees) that Moses had a vision of the six days. My main point however is, this tradition does NOT cover anything beyond the six days account. Even chapter 2 involves Adam being present before some things happen before his eyes. And the verses from Genesis 2:5 to when Adam is a conscious human being and an adult male are such that God could have briefly revealed them to Adam himself.”
Just because the Book of Jubilees doesn’t mention Moses having visions for the rest of Genesis, does that mean that he didn’t? Nevertheless, since when does Mr. Lundahl’s Roman Catholic Church, any Protestant Church or any Jewish group view the Book of Jubilees as trustworthy scripture? Also, why should anyone trust what Genesis, the Book of Jubilees or any other document says without having external confirming evidence? Where’s that confirming evidence, Mr. Lundahl?
Now, because Mr. Lundahl does not know of any tradition that Moses saw the rest of Genesis as a vision, he just assumes that if such a tradition ever existed, he would have known about it. That is, according to what Mr. Lundahl is assuming, any tradition that Moses got all of Genesis through visions could not have been lost or misinterpreted before the book of Jubilees or another ancient Jewish document could record it. These are absolutely groundless and worthless assumptions. He then illogically assumes that Hypothesis #1 must be true, where Moses had documents that told him about the rest of Genesis. Both Mr. Lundahl and any advocates of Hypothesis #2 don’t have a shred of evidence that Moses ever lived (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001). There’s no reason to trust any traditions about Moses having visions because again there’s no good contemporary external evidence for them. Genesis never identifies its author or mentions Moses having visions. Finally, Mr. Lundahl does not have a shred of evidence that Moses had any documents dealing with the events in Genesis. As I stated in Henke (2022ev):
“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?”
Lundahl (2022aa) further states:
“If Exodus 6 makes Levi his greatgrandfather, it makes much more sense for Moses to know about Levi from family tradition than from a vision. And Abraham is Levi's greatgrandfather, and his story begins to be told in detail already in Genesis 12, starting in some final verses of Genesis 11. But previous parts of Genesis 11 purport at least to be a genealogy, and the usual way to get genealogies is for generations to remember who they are and transmit that to ensuing generations.”
Here, Mr. Lundahl is being very subjective. Advocates of Hypothesis #2 might argue that Moses would have received more accurate, actually infallible, information about his genealogy in visions from God rather than any hand-written or oral communications from his fallible ancestors. Even with modern DNA technologies and record keeping, we can see how terribly inaccurate many of the genealogies at Ancestry.com are (Henke 2022mf). What good evidence does Mr. Lundahl have that Moses ever existed and that the genealogies in the Pentateuch are accurate? He doesn’t have anything. For me, it is far more reasonable that Genesis is just a made-up story (Hypotheses #3 and #4) rather than it being a “history” that was either handed down by people that have no evidence of ever existing (Hypothesis #1) or through a series of supernatural visions to Moses from God (Hypothesis #2), none of which have any evidence of ever happening.
Lundahl (2022aa) then quotes George Leo Haydock without giving an appropriate reference:
“From the Haydock comment to Genesis 1, verse 4:
Good; beautiful and convenient:---he divided light by giving it qualities incompatible with darkness, which is not any thing substantial, and therefore Moses does not say it was created. C.
In other words, Moses was given complete understanding of the process of creation - at minimum a vision. You can believe this tradition is false, and his info on creation is worthless, but you can hardly deny this is the tradition about it.”
In Lundahl (2022m), Mr. Lundahl reveals that George Leo Haydock (1774-1849) authored a Catholic Commentary, which Mr. Lundahl appears to be quoting here (also see Henke 2022ef). This is hardly a contemporary and reliable source on the origin and meaning of Bible stories. Yes, I don’t deny that there’s a tradition in the Book of Jubilees that Moses had a vision of the Six-Day Creation and that George Leo Haydock, Mr. Lundahl, and others believe in that tradition. Based on modern cosmology and geology, however, I simply state that the tradition is false and worthless just like traditions about dragons eating the Sun during Solar eclipses, Pele causing volcanic eruptions, and Thor causing thunder.
Lundahl (2022aa) then discusses his problems with Old-Earth Creationist Roman Catholics. I’ll leave that dispute to Mr. Lundahl and his Old Earth Creationist Roman Catholic opponents.
Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022aa) further complains:
“My point is, the people trying to pinpoint Genesis 3 to vision rather than tradition are inventing a vision that is NOT in the tradition.”
So, why should anyone trust visions, traditions, the existence of Moses, or that Moses had any written records or reliable oral traditions on Genesis? Mr. Lundahl is arguing that the purveyors of Hypothesis #2 are empty handed, when his hands are entirely empty too! Both Mr. Lundahl and the advocates of Hypothesis #2 don’t have any evidence whatsoever to support their claims. Again, the only logical approach is to be skeptical of anything that Genesis says and any traditions about it until external evidence becomes available to support the claims in Genesis. That evidence has never been found. Thus, there’s no reason to accept either Hypothesis #1 or Hypothesis #2, and the default skeptical hypotheses #3 and #4 remain the only logical options at least at this time.
Lundahl (2022aa) continues and quotes Henke (2022b):
“Arguably one Hebrew tradition that predates the split between Jews and Christians, and arguably even the split between Samaritans and Jews, though in this case I cannot point to a specific expression of this tradition among Samaritans.
Henke (2022b) states: ‘Where did it come from?’
The tradition by implication points to coming from Moses. As long as it cannot be traced to a later and complex fraud (which would need to be argued), I'll leave it at that.”
Again, we don’t have enough information to know who wrote Genesis and when. The evidence indicates that multiple authors were involved, but I’m not convinced that the dates and details in the JEPD hypothesis are accurate (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, pp. 10-24). Instead of Mr. Lundahl’s illegitimate approach is to accept baseless traditions and then wait to see if any evidence of fraud arises. Instead, he should take the opposite approach. He should be skeptical of Genesis and not accept any of its claims or traditions until external evidence confirms them.
Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022aa) then quotes my question from Henke (2022b) about the reliability of traditions, but gives an absolutely dreadful answer:
“Henke (2022b) states: ‘How do we know that this tradition is reliable?’
How do we "know" that any tradition is reliable? By trusting it. History is ultimately about what tradition you trust, in the case of there being conflicting ones.”
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A tradition or any another claim should NEVER be blindly trusted! The response to all claims must be skepticism until external evidence confirms that they are accurate (Henke 2022dv). Blindly accepting any tradition or claim often leads to gullibility, dogmas, religious and political intolerance and disasters. This is a serious flaw in Mr. Lundahl’s thinking and his approach to history and science. This is why he believes in a Talking Snake and magic fruit trees, but will not accept the abundant evidence for an ancient Earth (e.g., Dalrymple 1991; Strahler 1999; Prothero 2007).
Lundahl (2022aa) continues:
“I may not be able to articulate why I trust the Hebrew tradition above the Babylonian one or the Khemetic (Egyptian one), but I do.”
This statement also shows a serious flaw in Mr. Lundahl’s thinking. When asked why he trusts the Hebrew tradition and not the Babylonian or Egyptian ones, he should be able to immediately provide some evidence and peer-reviewed references to justify his beliefs, but he can’t. Baseless traditions of any kind don’t deserve to be accepted.
Lundahl (2022aa) further states:
“I can say why I trust tradition above reconstruction.”
As I’ve shown in Henke (2022b) and many of my other essays in this debate, Mr. Lundahl’s “reasons” for preferring Hypothesis #1 as an explanation for Genesis 3 are completely unjustified.
Lundahl (2022aa) continues and again quotes one of my questions from Henke (2022b):
“This brings us to the next point:
Henke (2022b) asks: ‘Why should the favored prejudices (traditions) of past generations be necessarily trusted?’
I prefer the favoured prejudice of a past generation above that of the present one, when it comes to past events. I do so on a lot of other issues too, but when it comes to past events, it's pretty obvious why. They were closer to them. And what we get from "scientific" reconstruction is not a near mathematical certitude trumping any past prejudices, we just get a sophisticated expression of present prejudices (including, since Hume, too often "miracles don't happen").
So, I would not go as far as "necessarily" but I would definitely say "usually, unless there is a major argument to the contrary."
Again, Mr. Lundahl’s approach to investigating past events is entirely wrong. It is far more probable that the witnesses of a supposed miracle are lying or misinterpreting the event than that a miracle actually occurred. The historical record shows that this is true. Mr. Lundahl has never presented any evidence that any miracle has ever occurred. He can’t present evidence of supposed past miracles because any evidence would have quickly disappeared and is usually poorly documented (Henke 2022ci). He needs to present evidence of miracles under present and strictly controlled laboratory conditions and no one has ever done that (Henke 2022co).
Sometimes modern archeology, geology and other sciences discover more accurate information using the remaining evidence of a past event than the baseless speculations and misinterpretations of ancient people that claim to have seen it or supposedly had visions of it from their gods. The volcanic eruption of Mt. Mazama and the formation of Crater Lake, Oregon, USA is a prime example of modern geology discovering what actually happened rather than just blindly accepting the ancient myths of the eyewitnesses of this eruption (Henke 2022fm). Mr. Lundahl needs to look at the quality of the ancient claims and find confirmational evidence. He should not blindly trust whatever is written in the Bible or any other ancient document.
Mr. Lundahl then cites the example of Noah’s Flood, where there’s actually good evidence that refutes the Flood geology that Mr. Lundahl wants to believe (e.g., Strahler 1999; Prothero 2007; my website):
“In the case of Flood stories, that of Babylon and that of the Bible cannot both be true. It cannot both be true that one god was annoyed people were making too much noise and decided to send a flood, and his twin, being a trixter, and having had the task of creating men, saved some by warning Utnapishtim (or Noah) AND at the same time one and the same just God (neither peevish, nor trixter) decided to send the Flood because society was turning too horrible on a world wide scale, and also to save one family which stood out against the horrors of their times. It cannot both be true that the vessel was a giant version of the coracle, and that it was a wood box of tanker proportions. One can argue that the wood box of tanker proportions was adequate to save all kinds of animals, while the coracle wouldn't have been. Or one can argue that the coracle is likelier in a local Flood, and good luck explaining how Shuruppak, some tens of metres above the Persian Gulf (34?) was flooded locally and the flood rose to a mount Nisir that is upstreams and is 2588 meters above the Persian Gulf! But the ultimate reason for my preference is kind of what world I feel we live in. The one God who is just is more credible than one peevish lord of gods and one devious second in command who sometimes saves us from the peevishness. And obviously, the adherents of this other theology also say the Flood was world wide.”
Mr. Lundahl is correct that the Babylonian and biblical accounts of the Flood cannot both be true. However, he fails to realize that they both can be false. Indeed, the geological evidence in the Castile Formation, Green River Formation and elsewhere overwhelming indicates that no worldwide Flood could have occurred in the past few thousands of years (e.g., Strahler 1999; Prothero 2007; my website). Mr. Lundahl is simply showing a blind preference for one irrational religious story over another that is just as irrational. There have always been disastrous local and even regional floods. It does not take much imagination to see how ancient people turned these events into myths about a “world-wide catastrophe.” Avalos (2010) also argues that there’s no reason to identify the God of the Old Testament as “just.”
Next, Lundahl (2022aa) goes back to quoting Henke (2022b) and discussing Genesis 3:
“Henke (2022b) states: ‘Even if Moses had a vision of the six days of Creation, how does that rule out Moses having additional visions that included Genesis 3?’
‘It's not the presence of the vision of the six days, but the total absence of a tradition of such a vision for Genesis 3 that rules this out.’”
Here, Mr. Lundahl is committing the logical fallacy of assuming that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Mr. Lundahl cannot argue that Hypothesis #2 did not occur because no one bothered to record what types of visions Moses supposedly had. Mr. Lundahl is taking the completely wrong approach to investigating Genesis 3. Advocates of Hypothesis #2 have no evidence that Moses existed and that Moses had extensive visions of what supposedly happened in Genesis and Mr. Lundahl also has no evidence that Moses existed and that Moses had extensive documentation of what supposedly happened in Genesis. Both he and any advocates of Hypothesis #2 must find positive external evidence for their claims on the origin of Genesis 3. Otherwise, skepticism is the default and no one should believe the story.
Lundahl (2022aa) continues by failing to properly answer my next question:
“Henke (2022b) states: ‘Couldn’t advocates of Hypothesis #2 argue that God could have given Moses visions of any event in the past at any time?’
‘That God could do it is no argument to assume He did so without there being any indication of it either in the Bible or in traditions around it.’”
Here, Mr. Lundahl finally recognizes the need to have positive evidence to support a claim. Unfortunately, what he views as sources of positive evidence are entirely wrong. That is, Mr. Lundahl is correct that anyone could invoke god-of-the-gaps or anything supernatural in a vain attempt to explain away any mystery or support any agenda. However, the Bible and tradition are not appropriate sources of positive evidence. Their claims that are often baseless. Any tradition or claim in the Bible or tradition needs to be supported by archeology or other external evidence. If there’s no external evidence, there’s no need to accept any Biblical claim or tradition.
Lundahl (2022aa) further mentions another one of my questions in Henke (2022b) and comments on it:
Henke (2022b) states: ‘Furthermore, advocates of Hypotheses #3 and/or #4 would identify any “traditions” about Moses seeing visions as probably nothing more than groundless made-up stories that became widely circulated and popular over the centuries.’
‘Indeed. One extra reason not to add to the visions Moses had. Burning bush and subsequent commands leading Moses and through him Israel, check. Ten Commandments, twice, check. Six Days, perhaps in connection with Sabbath commandment, check. All legislation passages involving "God spoke to Moses and said," check. Revelations about what Israel was to do, about Miriam and Aaron, about what he could expect for himself (seeing God from the back), check. But a vision of Genesis 3 - it's neither in Exodus, nor in the traditions surrounding any of it.’”
Certainly, we shouldn’t pile groundless speculations on top of groundless speculations. However, Mr. Lundahl’s “checks” in the Old Testament are not supported by any external evidence (see Finkelstein and Silberman 2001) and are nothing more than worthless claims in the Bible. I would further argue that rather than keeping the speculations about Moses and what he supposedly did to a minimum, Hypotheses #1 and #2 should be totally discarded until any good evidence is found that Moses, Miriam and Aaron ever existed, that Moses had visions from God of any kind, and that Moses and his siblings actually did any of the claims about them in the Bible.
Finally, Mr. Lundahl ends Lundahl (2022aa) with the following comments to my statement condemning Lundahl (2022b) and Lundahl (2022c):
“Finally, one more:
Henke (2022b) states: ‘The arguments in Lundahl (2022b) and Lundahl (2022c) are worthless and would not convince any advocate of Hypothesis #2.’
‘I haven't seen any, except the Old Earther I met in a Catholic charity where he was volunteering and I was received. And even he didn't claim to have given the matter totally thorough thought.’
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Sosthenes
28.XI.2022”
I will leave it to Mr. Lundahl to locate his own proponents of Hypothesis #2. I reject Hypothesis #2 just as much as Hypothesis #1. Again, Hypotheses #3 and #4 are the default positions and are the most probable explanations for Genesis 3, as well as the rest of the Pentateuch.
References:
Avalos, H. 2010. “Yahweh Is a Moral Monster” in J.W. Loftus (ed.) The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails: Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, pp. 209-236.
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.
Dalrymple, G.B. 1991. The Age of the Earth: Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 474 pp.
Prothero, D.R. 2007. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters: Cambridge University Press: New York, NY, USA, 381pp.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.