Second Round essays: Henke Can't Read · Henke Can't Argue Philosophy Very Well Either · Henke Still Can't Read - Or Hasn't Done so To Lewis · To Reaffirm "Earliest Known Audience" · The Philosophy of History of Henke : Given without References, Refuted without References · He Applies It · (Excursus on William Tell and Catholic Saints) · Continuing on Section 5 · We're Into Section 6!
Here we continue, after the Excursus:
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.
Indeed. There is very little Biblical history that is based on prophecy, part being Daniel, part being certain chapters of Apocalypse, and as such upcoming, and part being Genesis 1:1 to 2:4.
But this is not all.
- Genesis 12 to 50 reads very much like a chronicled family saga. Also, final generations of that one is not very far back from Moses himself (see Exodus 6).
- Genesis 2:5 to 11:32 reads like short snippets learned by heart.
It doesn't seem like the kind of thing a visionary would get, either by hearing or by sight. Or feign to have gotten that way.
Apocalypse 1
[9] I John, your brother and your partner in tribulation, and in the kingdom, and patience in Christ Jesus, was in the island, which is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus. [10] I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, [11] Saying: What thou seest, write in a book, and send to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamus, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. [12] And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks: [13] And in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. [14] And his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, [15] And his feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters.
[16] And he had in his right hand seven stars. And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword: and his face was as the sun shineth in his power. [17] And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the First and the Last, [18] And alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell. [19] Write therefore the things which thou hast seen, and which are, and which must be done hereafter. [20] The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.
Ezechiel 1
The word of the Lord came to Ezechiel the priest the son of Buzi in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chobar: and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. [4] And I saw, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north: and a great cloud, and a fire infolding it, and brightness was about it: and out of the midst thereof, that is, out of the midst of the fire, as it were the resemblance of amber: [5] And in the midst thereof the likeness of four living creatures: and this was their appearance: there was the likeness of a man in them. [6] Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. [7] Their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their foot was like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like the appearance of glowing brass. [8] And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides: and they had faces, and wings on the four sides, [9] And the wings of one were joined to the wings of another. They turned not when they went: but every one went straight forward. [10] And as for the likeness of their faces: there was the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side of all the four: and the face of an ox, on the left side of all the four: and the face of an eagle over all the four.
Apart from a content that's very different from most passages in Genesis, we have signalling that a vision was going on: "I was in the spirit," "[t]he word of the Lord came to ... and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. [4] And I saw."
Now read Genesis 5:
This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him to the likeness of God. [2] He created them male and female; and blessed them: and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. [3] And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. [4] And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. [5] And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
[6] Seth also lived a hundred and five years, and begot Enos. [7] And Seth lived after he begot Enos, eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. [8] And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. [9] And Enos lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. [10] After whose birth he lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and begot sons and daughters.
[11] And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years, and he died.
Apart from the extraordinary lifespans, and an introitus making the first of the men in this lineage the first man created, it reads like a fairly humdrum genealogy like shepherders all over the world like to rehearse about their families, while tending the sheep.
Even Joseph Smith did not try to pass off I Nephi as a series of visions, he preferred to describe a supernatural event in which he lays hands on "golden plates" with a text that ultimately would (if genuine) have been written the normal way, but the one extra supernatural touch being that Joseph Smith claimed supernatural understanding of the language in the golden plate text.
No, hypothesis #2 does not seem like it. But since Henke makes a point of parallelling hypothesis #2 to Joseph Smith, I make a point of pointing out, again and again, Joseph Smith couldn't and probably didn't try to convince his hearers the content of Book of Mormon was history they already knew, he just convinced them it was "in fact history" but transmitted to them in a very unhistoric way, very unlike how Washington and Lafayette were transmitted to Abraham Lincoln. If this were how Genesis was written, how come this extraordinary fact was not preserved?
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.
No, it would not. Quoting one statement to defend that one statement would be a fallacy, but the Bible is not one statement.
To make it a bit clearer, if I pretended to be a Washington sceptic, and Henke replied that Lincoln believed in his historic existence "fourscore years and ten" before Ghettysburg, I'd be somewhat disingenious (except as continuing the spoof) to reply "but Lincoln is also a character and Ghettysburg also an event in that story book called 'US History' - you can't appeal from one made up character to another one!"
In each case, the appeal would be to one more recent than the one from which the appeal were made, and therefore closer to us and easier to check. And what is more, closer to the community in which we are.
I will here skip forward to section 6:10. Here he is quoting my treatment of it;
The Hellenistic era is a kind of cultural community (to which among others Apollonius of Rhodes belonged) and a community usually knows how it started.
Note : "a commnity usually knows how it started" is the best proof of Alexander the Great - the historians, the texts from back then, just express that knowledge. But this is exactly the same argument that Henke would disagree with when it came to Catholics knowing they came from Jesus, or Jews and Samaritans that they came from Moses, or Moses he came from Abraham and ultimately Abraham he came from Adam via Noah.
Henke wants to have it both ways - the Hellenistic community knows it started with Alexander the Great, but the claims involving theologically relevant miracles suddenly cease to fit that pattern. That is why I continue the statement with:
Like New York knows - independently of old archives, which actually also are accessible as confirmation - that it began with Nieuw Amsterdam.
Exactly as "the Jewish Church" knows it started with God making a covenant with Moses, and that it later split into Jewish proper and Samaritan after the rule of King Solomon.
Exactly as the Catholic Church knows it started with Christ showing Himself to be God by the Resurrection and making a covenant with His chief disciples, Matthew 28, followed by the sending of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2.
After this I give three theoretic objections (not taken from McDaniel) which one could use to impugn the principle.
Once more, Lundahl (2022f) makes a huge mistake of just assuming that whatever view an ancient community may have had about its origin, it must be reliable history. No. Such stories about the founding of various communities may be fairly accurate history or they may contain legends or consist entirely of myths without historical evidence. It’s the job of historians to separate history from fantasy.
But the problem Henke doesn't get around is, McDaniel actually used the existence of the Hellenistic community as evidence for Alexander - as he should. It cannot be the "job of historians" to examine such stories without any bias in favour of a community's own version of its origins, if a historian also has the "job" of affirming the existence of Alexander by a) proving the Hellenistic community existed; and b) sourcing this community (as per its own evaluation) to Alexander. As McDaniel, perfectly correctly, actually did.
Rather than realizing that half-human and half-snake creatures are probably just made-up stories like the centaurs, Lundahl (2022f) thinks that they may have been humans with fused legs. While such a birth defect is certainly possible, his reasoning for this defect in Lundahl (2022f) is not. Without any evidence whatsoever, Lundahl (2022f) argues that nuclear wars before Noah’s Flood contributed to their conditions. Of course, Flood geology is bogus and there’s no evidence whatsoever in the Precambrian for a 4,400-to-6,000-year-old civilization with nuclear weapons (see my essays against Flood Geology here). If Mr. Lundahl has evidence for such a nuclear ancient civilization, I want to see it and I’m willing to change my mind.
I actually do not think that centaurs are just made up stories. It could be a case of very early riders (for the region at least) seen from a distance by most observers. Hercules and Jason arguably were educated by such and told not to break the mystique surrounding them.
The evidences for pre-Flood nuke wars are:
- Hindu memories of the pre-Flood world involving visions of "gods" that become "brighter than a thousand suns" (cited by Oppenheimer);
- Hindu memories of the pre-Flood world involving a divine arm that spreads death at a distance, but can be avoided by ducking under an obstacle;
- this being a probable concurrent explanation with higher radioactivity from the cosmos for shortened lifespans, birthdefects like those of Kekrops and Fu Hsi, faster production of C14, leading to a rise from atmospheric 1.4 pmC at Flood (2957 BC) to 100 pmC at the Fall of Troy (c. 1180 BC).
It is not foolproof, but it is some. Now, Kekrops seems, according to Castor of Rhodes, to be very much too late to have lived in this more radioactive than ours world, but as the name was a recurring one, the list of the kings of Athens given on wikipedia from him could very well have been shortened.
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC.
And that (11th millennium BC) means times just before Babel, in my recalibration of C14.
But yes, my objection 2 was obviously, China and Athens with Kekrops and Fu Xi (pinyin spelling for Fu Hsi) were "unbelievable" stories of how communities originated and my answer is, they were in fact not unbelievable. China and Athens also confirm the general trend that communities know how they originate.
Until that evidence ever comes forward, Mr. Lundahl is totally failing to separate history from his fantasies about the nuclear pre-Flood civilizations. The speculations about pre-Flood nuclear wars in Lundahl (2022f) are so bizarre, outrageous and unfounded that I doubt that even the young-Earth creationists at Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis would take them seriously.
I think I even got the general idea from some remark in connexion with the RATE project. How about asking Jonathan Sarfati if my memory totally sucks, or not? But "failing to separate history from his fantasies" is not an argument about my actual arguments, it's an ad hominem.
My conclusion (concurring with McDaniel) is, yes, the Hellenistic era recalling its origins in Alexander the Great is great proof for Alexander the Great and his carreere. And for some reason, Henke doesn't deal with that. Perhaps because he is aware of the implications it's getting here. Objections 1 and 3: 1 was dealt with more fully in He Applies It and 3 has been dealt with here: while Mormons think there were 5th C AD Mormons, they are aware of a distinction between these and themselves and are fully aware of themselves going back, directly, to Joseph Smith.
So, within the US American community, I can go to the community of the 19th C. as testifying to the community of the 18th C (Founding Fathers). And, back at section 5 now, similarily, within the series of Biblical communities (which show no obvious break like the ones between 5th C and 19th C Mormons!) I go to earliest known community mentioning Moses for evidence he is recalled as origin of Israelites - both Jew and Samaritan - and that puts Moses into the position of testifying to the generations Abraham to twelve sons of Jacob as origin of the Hebrews coming into Egypt, and given all of the time, from Abraham's vocation to Jacob blessing his sons, the Beduin tribe could transport writing material, this brings Abraham (and his 318 men!) into the position of having testified to this community of its more far-off origins, going back to the Flood (to which also a great deal of other communities testify) and via the Flood, to Adam. Precisely as within the Western community, I would refer to 19th C. reaction for the French Revolution, the late Ancien Régime for Henry IV, the time of Henry IV for those of St. Joan, that of St. Joan for that of St. Lewis IX, that of St. Lewis IX for King Robert, that of King Robert for that of King and Emperor Charlemagne, that of Charlemagne for Bl. Alcuin in Tours, Alcuin for St. Gregory of Tours, him for St Martin and also for Clovis, and then the time of Clovis for Constantine, or of Constantine for Caesar, or of Caesar to Antiochus IV and then him (and specifically his Hebrew and Biblical adversaries in Maccabees) for Alexander the Great himself. I know my method, and I apply it with constistency, this is not a failure to separate what should be separated, it is an ability of not separating things arbitrarily, just as that happens to be handed down on a plate by an expert.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
31.V.2022
Fun fact : this is the number 777 of published posts on this blog./HGL
