Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis

What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous) · Ah, Some New · Back to Philosophy · Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope. · Why Catalogue the Supernatural? Why Catalogue Fiction? · Henke(2022bi) Starts It Today! But I only get to Henke(2022bk) For Now. · New Batch of Henke Essays · Resuming at Henke(2022bL) after Interruption, up to 2022br. · Why Did I Bring Up Greek Myth? · Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis

Henke (2022bt): “No Circular Reasoning Fallacy in Henke (2022b): Again, History Cannot Demonstrate the Reality of Miracles”
already answered
Henke (2022bu): “The Supernatural Might be Real, but Lundahl (2022L) Fails to Provide Any Evidence of It”
was too quick a reply, since the evidence is provided elsewhere, my remark answered and objection against rather than giving a proof for

Henke (2022bv): “Bad Analyses of False Prophets in Lundahl (2022L)”

Well, after demonstrably false prophet Kenneth Copeland incorrectly “predicted” in a March 13, 2020 video on YouTube (also see this article here) that Covid would immediately disappear, months later thousands of people still attended his convention.

The thing is, they arguably did that by forgetting that prophecy and concentrating on the next one.

My main analysis was however, a historic claim is different from a prophetic claim.

Henke (2022bw): “Lundahl (2022L) is Again Wrong About How Mormons View the Book of Mormon, the Bible, Joseph Smith Jr. and Themselves”

As I discussed in Henke (2022bL), the Mormons actually boast that the Book of Mormon was not “transmitted as history in a normal way”, but instead they think it was written, preserved, transmitted and translated in a “divinely guided” and supernatural way that is far superior to the Bible ... Nevertheless, conservative Christians claim that the Bible was not “transmitted as history in a normal way” either. Even the sections that appear “transmitted as history in a normal way” are identified as the “inerrant word of God” by conservative Christians, and by Orthodox Jews for the Old Testament. Normally, people don’t identify a history book as “divinely inspired.”

This theological claim about the historicity has no bearing on the distinction made between "transmitted as history in a normal way" versus "lost and spectacularily recovered" - it's not the mode of knowledge.

Ineffabilis Deus is a peer reviewed paper, Pope Pius IX consulted the bishops on whether to dogmatise or not, and it's just that as Pope, he added (for us Catholics) the theological qualification infallible by this act. It was still a peer reviewed paper first.

There’s also a lot of baseless visions and “supernaturally recovered history” in the Bible. By accepting Hypothesis #1 on Genesis 3, Lundahl (2022d) readily admits that Moses had to have received visions from God in order to write the “history” of Genesis 1:1-2:14

Actually, the part needing prophetic epistemology ends at Genesis 2:6. From his being formed, Adam could watch the rest happen, obviously trusting God (with Whom he conversed) for how Eve was formed in verses 21 and first part of 22.

Genesis 1:28 would also have been within the observation of both Adam and Eve, therefore in the Genesis 2 story as Moses received it. And displaced into his own vision of the 6 days.

There are other examples in the Old Testament where Hypothesis #1 requires that God or angels had to tell Moses about various events because supposedly no human eyewitnesses were present (e.g., Genesis 11:6-7 as Lundahl (2022L) happens to mention, but also Genesis 18:17-21 and others; also see Henke 2022ew).

Genesis 11:6-7 are two verses.
Genesis 18:17-21 involves what the Lord said to Abraham

Henke (2022ew): “Lundahl (2022o) Versus Hypothesis #2: Could Genesis 5 have been in a Vision from God?”

Yet, Lundahl (2022n) believes that a 19th century nun had visions that constructed an entire biography for St. Philomena, which included people, various events, her supposed status as a Greek princess and even giving the saint’s birth date as January 10.

Yes. Arguably the nun was celebrating her own birthday, and was curious about the saint's.

If Mr. Lundahl did not know anything about the 19th century origin of St. Philomena and simply read her biography, how could he distinguish it from a supposed historical account passed down by humans?

What exact text was ever published about St. Philomena without this miraculous intro?

How would I ever be able to a) ignore the 19th C. discovery of relics and b) at the same time know of the biography?

If the entire detailed story of St. Philomena could be based on “visions”, why not the entire story of Adam or Moses?

Because, very simply, St. Philomena's discovery by archaeology and miracle has not been mislaid.

Here there is a new proposed scenario for non-facts to be accepted as facts. Three steps.

i

Unknown and therefore not accepted.

ij

Miraculous recovery - real or false - and accepted as "lost but spectacularily recovered history."

iij

The story of the miraculous recovery is for some reason forgotten, that story it contained is preserved, and as a result the status changes to "history, normally transmitted" ... and the fact of step i is forgotten.

The simple answer is, we have no known example of such a change of status.

The one possibility (I can think of) would be of the information going through a bottleneck. For instance, the Catholic Church is nearly wiped out. Nearly no one of the survivors has heard of St. Philomena. The one who has heard from his mother while doing a prayer to her, and mother told only part of the story, like why St. Philomena would understand the issue. A bit how manuals in Greek mythology for children leave out the prophetic status of the Theogony, and go directly to Uranus and Gaia. He grows up and transmits the knowledge he has, rather than the one his now dead mother had.

Such a bottleneck has not happened with the Catholic Church. A similar bottleneck giving Mormons the impression Book of Mormon was a normally preserved chronicle ending in Late Antiquity has also not happened. On my view, such a bottleneck has a very low probability, even while involving no miracle.

It's arguably easier to confuse two different people (if Jean Colson was right, young Irenaeus learned of a John he mistook for John son of Zebedee, one of the twelve, and who was actually a John Cohen and not one of the twelve, but also a disciple, the loved one, this being the author of the Johannine corpus) or two different epochs (the German or Germanic legend* given in a manual of such as "Die Rabenschlacht" features Dietrich of Bern - Theoderic of Verona - as beating Ermaneric at Ravenna, in reality Ermaneric and Theoderic won two different battles at Ravenna). But the change of status from spectacular recovery of lost knowledge to simple retention of never lost knowledge has no precedent I know of in the case of legends distorting somewhat the real facts. You see, the spectacular is not very likely to be lost by simple oblivion. And a spectacular recovery of lost knowledge (by Joseph Smith, by a 19th C. nun, by a team of researchers having "Lucy in the Sky with the Diamonds" on the radio) is precisely spectacular. Therefore highly unlikely to be forgotten.

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.

There is however information in the Book of Jubilees on Moses getting a vision of the six days. And I think this view is shared by Catholic authors, mainly, though many or most would deny the "fuller account" in that book to be genuine. If that fuller account is not so, the "fuller account" but not the fact Moses had a vision for that six days period, is fan fiction put into the margin of accepted fact. Like a certain film from 1944 (possible credit for Reagan mistaking fiction for fact).

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?

I'd consider Heber or Peleg got that vision. You are giving exactly one example, and yet you propose "plenty of other verses" - and this is only dealing with the Orthodox view that Genesis is true both history and theology. For non-Christians, lots of such examples (in Genesis this one) could be someone's theological interpretation of the events. I do not share this view, but my point is, these non-believers do not get a case against normally transmitted history from that.

Summing up the case for hypothesis #2 / hypethesis #4 depending on theological view of the vision (true from God or neither true nor from God), out of 680 chapters of Biblical history, some of which involve accounts of prophetic events, encounters with God or visions, like much about Moses and some in Daniel, Henke is not presenting even two of these chapters as arguably prophecy rather than history. Because the stray verses in Genesis 11 and possible addition for Genesis 18 very much do not add up to the rest of Genesis 2, after the parts where Adam was no witness.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
16th Lord's Day after Pentecost
25.IX.2022