Q&A: The Principle of Tradition and Trust in the Transmitters
The Principle of Tradition and Trust in the Transmitters
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about a claim that sounds to me not very plausible, yet at the same time it is also famous and well known. The claim is that people in the distant past were gullible and foolish. So it was possible to implant in them almost any historical idea, even if it had never actually happened.
For example, in the time of King David it would have been possible to implant in them belief in the Exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Mount Sinai even if it were a total fabrication. Our suspicion regarding people in the past is based on two main reasons. First, their analysis of reality was completely mistaken (from a modern point of view): almost every natural phenomenon they thought was an act of the gods, and along the way they also embellished and seasoned those interpretations with myths and legends. Second, they did not have enough ability to document things in order to remember the past. And the little documentation we do see that they had is full of mythical stories and urban legends.
From the combination of these assumptions it follows that if an impressive person had come to people in the past, he could have sold them almost anything as having happened to their ancestors in an earlier period (say, 300 years earlier), even a foundational national event. So whereas today we would expect them to ask, “Why haven’t we heard about this?”, back then they supposedly did not even have that minimal critical sense.
What does the Rabbi think about this? a0
Sorry for the length, but I don’t recall this question appearing here on the site, even though it comes up so often.
Best regards,
K.
Answer
There is something to this, but I still think it is more reasonable that there was something there than that everything is an invention (not every detail has to be authentic). The burden of proof is on the one claiming that it is all a mythical invention. Beyond that, this joins an entire body of additional evidence, and one has to examine the whole picture (see the fifth booklet here on the site).
Discussion on Answer
Exactly so.
1. I don’t have enough information to answer.
2. That isn’t correct. Once the religion took hold of them, through a well-oiled set of commandments it locked them into it, by crippling their ability to detach from the past. For example, the commandment of tefillin is a remembrance that the Lord took us out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. And so too with many, many other commandments. (Which of course developed later in order to receive the story…)
3. That is a claim of doubt; we have no proof either way. And we know that in other areas, from a modern point of view, they failed badly. We are left to claim that they were like that in the other areas too.
1. The very fact that you don’t have enough information offhand to answer says a lot. After all, even very distant peoples heard about the mass revelation at Sinai, whereas we have not heard of any mass revelation of distant peoples.
2. If it was as easy to fool people in the past and plant a foundational event in their collective memory, then it should be just as easy to fool them that it never happened in the first place.
3. It is not correct to infer from the domain of scientific knowledge to the domain of synthetic judgment; these are two different domains. At the very least there is a present presumption here (a presumption that the judgment of people in the past was similar to ours today), and the burden of proof is on whoever claims otherwise.
1. How do you know that other peoples heard about the revelation at Mount Sinai?
2. Surely you agree that not every day someone tries to plant a foundational national event anew. So it may be that they only tried again some 1,500 years later, and by then the people were already smart enough not to accept a new event.
3. Scientific knowledge is synthetic knowledge, and when we see that it was incorrect, so too was their synthetic knowledge. You can read, for example, about the connection of causality and induction to truth and stability.
1. I meant that at this time, a person from another distant people who asks himself questions of faith like you do has probably heard of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). By the same token, you too should have heard by now about a story of mass revelation relevant to his distant people.
2. If it is an easy process, why shouldn’t it happen every day?
3. Scientific knowledge is an accumulation of the fruits of synthetic thinking effort; it is not the thinking process itself. Over time, scientific knowledge accumulated and became something very significant, but that does not mean the thinking ability changed. It’s like a person who earns X money every month. Over time, the money in his bank accumulates into a very large sum. But the fact that he has a lot of money in the bank does not mean his monthly earnings changed; they stayed the same (X).
Thanks,
2. Because it simply doesn’t happen. Have you ever heard of someone trying to convince an entire nation about a historical fact in the past without an obvious interest?
2. If so, then why should it happen even once? Either way: if this is a process that is very rare, then let it not happen even once; and if it is not so rare, why should it happen only once? It is more reasonable that it would occur at least several times.
Because even if it’s rare, it can happen… and it did happen…
A miracle is rare too… (though it’s not really correct to speak about rarity but about probability, and there the religious would argue that it is 1.)
I thought of a few arguments against this:
1. If it is easy to plant a foundational national event in the national memory of people in the distant past, I would expect such planting to have happened among several different peoples as well (that is, that there would be several parallel stories of mass revelations), but to the best of my knowledge, the story of the mass revelation in Egypt is the only one. This is also stated in the verses:
“For ask now of the former days that were before you, from the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven: has there ever been anything as great as this thing, or has anything like it been heard? Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has any god ever attempted to come and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?”