Q&A: Evidence for the Exodus from Egypt and the Revelation at Mount Sinai
Evidence for the Exodus from Egypt and the Revelation at Mount Sinai
Question
Hello.
If I understand correctly, we have no real, solid external evidence for the Exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Mount Sinai, aside from the Torah itself.
Which means that we have no way to prove the existence of God and the choosing of the Jewish people, or the giving of this or that commandment, except through the biblical text itself.
And I wonder why we should rely on a text, when we know the period in which it was written, and the beliefs that were prevalent then do not testify to any real critical thinking, nor to any significant abstraction.
Even if the Torah itself is fundamentally different from the other conceptions, as you analyze in several of your lectures, still, how much should we rely on it that miracles really happened, and that the Red Sea really split in two?
After all, even today in our world, people tell endless stories about kabbalists driving cars without fuel and bottles of arak that suffice for thousands of people—actual open miracles. So it is very possible that in a religious world like back then, in a world where the possibility that there are no higher powers would not even cross anyone's mind, every event would be interpreted and analyzed as coming from God, even if that was not really the case.
Isn't it possible that if you yourself had lived then, you would have explained everything as natural phenomena, and seen no reason to assume the existence of God and His choosing of the Jewish people? You would have thought that the world follows its natural course; at most maybe some star fell here or there.
To sum up: how do we know to trust that there were miracles and there was prophecy? Isn't it possible that prophecy was something like it is today—various kinds of powers that we know from certain people? Maybe it involved a lot of imagination and hallucinations, just like today there are all kinds of people reporting all kinds of things that a rational person does not believe.
Answer
The topic is far too broad for a discussion like this, and I won't be able to continue here. This discussion is presented in detail in the fifth conversation of my book The First Existent.
So here I will describe it briefly. The line of thought, in my view, is as follows: 1. One reaches the conclusion, from philosophical and other considerations, that there is a God. 2. If He created the world, it is reasonable that He wants something from us, especially since we are beings with free choice and are supposed to choose something. 3. Morality cannot be the goal, because morality is a means to a proper society. But it cannot be the purpose of society, because if that were the case, it would have been preferable not to create it at all, and there would be no need for it to be proper. 4. Therefore this is probably a "religious" goal. But I do not see or understand any other goal, or what it would obligate me to do. 5. Therefore it is reasonable to expect a revelation that would convey these goals to me. 6. Now a tradition reaches me that He did indeed reveal Himself. This fits my expectation very well, so why should I cast doubt on it? 7. That tradition also passes down to me a book that He gave, and around it many oral traditions.
From all this, it is reasonable that something like this happened, although regarding the details—miracles, pyrotechnics, details of Jewish law—there is certainly room for considerable doubt. I have no doubt that some of this consists of inventions and mistakes, and the vast majority is later interpretation, even if it is not mistaken. But for our purposes that does not matter, because if I am obligated by His demands of me, this is the best I have. If I reach the conclusion that something specific is clearly wrong, then perhaps I will not observe it. So long as that is not the case, there is a presumption that this is what is required of me.
Note: we should not expect certainty in any field, including faith or tradition. The question is whether it is reasonable and acceptable. In my view, it is.