Witness’s argument (approx.)
I would expect any religion that wants to impress and establish the faith of its believers to have a story of revelation to an entire people, but there is no other story like it.
Why wouldn’t the story of Revelation alone (regardless of what is given to us in Revelation) prove to us that God is religious? Especially since there is no other story like it, to the best of my understanding.
In addition, there is the story of Haman, who saw the manna of a whole nation for 40 years. How can one lie about such a long-term issue to the children of those people?
I ask objectively whether this story is enough to prove the existence of God.
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Beyond that, one can also ask the counter-question - why is there no external evidence from other peoples for this revelation? If it was so massive, there were other peoples who would have heard about such a great revelation, and even if not, they would at least have found archaeological findings indicating a large number of people who had ever stayed in the same area thousands of years ago (I heard that there is evidence of various things that people's excrement from many years ago was found!), There is also no documentation from Egyptian writings that date back to that period and so on... A story in itself does not indicate anything too special, no matter how old it is... Of course, this does not mean that there is no God or that there was no revelation in one form or another, but the facts actually lead in the opposite direction and certainly do not strengthen it.
This is a fairly minor difficulty. The question of what survives and what doesn't is quite accidental. What's more, the whole world saw it. The people of Israel were in the Sinai Desert and they saw it.
The argument about the lack of archaeological evidence is inaccurate. There is much archaeological and historical evidence that proves the existence of a Semitic slave people in Egypt, and that they left it. The Egyptian historians themselves, as well as the Greeks and Romans, all agree on this, except that their claim is that the Jews were expelled by the will of the Egyptians (because of the anger of the gods, etc.) and not against their will.
The lack of archaeological findings is specific to the desert, but it has already been proven from other sources that archaeological findings should not be expected from verified nomads (for example, see here https://www.haaretz.co.il/hblocked?returnTo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.co.il%2Fmagazine%2F2019-10-10%2Fty-article-magazine%2F0000017f-f243-da6f-a77f-fa4fab570000)
This is apart from the fact that relying on archaeology in general is quite dubious in my opinion. It's like determining a puzzle picture based on a few percentages of its parts. It can give certain indications but nothing more.
The link above is incorrect, here is the link:
https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2019-10-10/ty-article-magazine/0000017f-f243-da6f-a77f-fa4fab570000
We are talking about the Revelation, not the Exodus. My words were directed at that.
The people heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and they lived.
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%93%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%93_%D7%9C%D7%92
Moses, our Lord, Israel did not believe in him because of the signs he did. He who believes according to the signs has a flaw in his heart, that he may do the sign, and be a sorcerer. And why did they believe in him at the presence of Mount Sinai, which our eyes saw and not a stranger, and our ears heard and not after the fire and the voices and the torches, and he approached the mist and the voice spoke to him and we heard Moses Moses go tell them thus and thus and so he speaks face to face the word of the Lord with you ’ and why is it that the presence of Mount Sinai alone is the evidence of his prophecy which is truth without fault as it is said Behold I come to you in a cloud so that the people may hear the words of your people and also believe in you forever, since before this thing they did not believe in a loyalty that stands forever, but a loyalty that is followed by reflection and thought.
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A8%D7%9E%D7%91%22%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99_%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94_%D7%97_%D7%90
Witness Argument
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%98%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%93_(%D7%99%D7%94%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA)
There is a big difference between historians from the Hellenistic period like Apion and Manetho who heard a story and wrote about it retrospectively and documentation from that period.
In addition, we are not talking about a group of slaves but about 3 million people who walked in the desert on a miraculous path, with a sea that was divided in two, 10 plagues and more.
This is similar to the flood issue that is hung up on every source regarding the flooding of a specific area like the Black Sea, but in fact distorts the verses that claim that the flood was worldwide.
There is a claim in the Bible, so evidence needs to be found.
Assuming what is wanted and then associating every weak finding to support it is not serious.
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