Evidence for the Exodus and the Status of Mount Sinai
peace.
If I understand correctly, we have no real, good external evidence for the Exodus and the existence of Mount Sinai, other than the Torah itself.
Which means that we have no way to prove the reality of God and the choice of the people of Israel, or the giving of certain commandments, except from the biblical text itself.
And I wonder why we would trust a text, when we know the period in which it was written, and the beliefs that prevailed at the time do not indicate any real criticality, nor any significant abstraction.
Even if the Torah itself is fundamentally different from other perceptions, as you analyze in some of your lectures, how much do we still trust that miracles did occur, and that the Red Sea did indeed part in two?
Even today in our world, people tell stories until further notice, about kabbalists who drive cars without gas and about bottles of arak that are enough for thousands of people, truly visible miracles. So it is very possible that in a religious world like that, a world where there is no possibility that there are no higher powers beyond the grain of someone’s mind, every event will be interpreted and analyzed as coming from God, even if it is not really so.
It’s impossible that if you were there yourself, you would explain everything as natural things. And see no reason to assume the reality of God and His choice of the people of Israel? You would think that the world behaves as it usually does, at most a star fell here or there.
In short, how can we trust that there were miracles and prophecies? It is impossible that prophecy was anything like it is today, with all sorts of powers and other things that we know about from various people. Maybe it contained a lot of imagination and hallucinations. Just as today there are all sorts of people who report all sorts of things that a rational person does not believe in.
The subject is too broad for such a discussion and I cannot continue it here. This discussion is discussed in detail in the fifth conversation of my book, The First Book.
Therefore, I will briefly describe it here. The process, in my opinion, is as follows: 1. We come to the conclusion from philosophical and other considerations that there is a God. 2. If He created the world, it is likely that He wants something from us (in particular, we, as free moral agents, 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 goal of society, since then it would be better not to create and it would not need to be proper. 4. Therefore, this is probably a ‘religious’ goal. But I do not see or understand another goal (what does it impose on me). 5. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that there will be a revelation that will convey these goals to me. 6. Now a tradition comes to me that He did indeed reveal Himself. This very much fits with my expectation, so why should I doubt it? 7. This tradition conveys to me a book that He gave, and around it are many oral traditions.
From all this, it is likely that something like this happened, although there is certainly room for great doubt regarding the details (miracles, pyrotechnics, details of the halacha). I have no doubt that some of this is invention and error, and the vast majority is a later interpretation (even if not erroneous). But for our purposes it does not matter, because if I am obligated to his demands of me, it is the best I have. If I come to the conclusion that something is clearly wrong then I may not keep it. As long as it is not, there is a presumption that this is what is required of me.
Note. We have no expectation of certainty in any field, let alone in faith or tradition. The question is whether this is reasonable and acceptable. In my opinion, yes.
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