Question

Honorable Rabbi, hello,
Regarding the possibility of implantation, I wanted to raise a possibility that seems logical to me, and I formulated it as follows (a few days ago). I would be happy to hear the Rabbi’s response:
The central proof in Judaism is the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt and the wilderness, and especially the revelation at Mount Sinai. Proofs for these miracles are based on the Torah scroll and on traditions passed down from generation to generation.
The claim is that an entire people would not lie to its children, especially when a book is transmitted that testifies to the reliability of the tradition and to the process by which the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the book to the people, together with the miracles that prove the truth of the religion.
The proof rests on the idea that it is not at all plausible that there was some implanting party who managed to “pull one over” on the people. And that is for three main reasons:

• If there was such an implanting party, where did it disappear to from the pages of history?
• Why would a people believe an implanting party that tells them stories and obligates them in commandments?
• How would a people accept a book which, according to the implanting party’s own account, was supposed to have already been in that people’s possession?

However, I would like to suggest two possibilities (out of many) that make the possibility of the “implantation theory” much easier to accept (I believe I am not original in these possibilities, though I have not found conclusive refutations of them):

• It is possible that there was a people that had a religion with national stories, as well as a number of commandments, as was common among ancient peoples.

A small group of people (perhaps the group was priests, etc.) produced a book from among themselves and claimed that the book had been preserved in their families by tradition for many years. To the people, the story seemed reasonable, because it incorporated the stories and commandments that were already accepted among them (and perhaps it even explained commandments whose rationale they did not understand—for example, the prohibition of the sciatic nerve, and so on). That group claimed that the book had been lost from the people’s ancestors, or that their ancestors had worshipped idols and now the children had repented, and therefore the book was not currently in their possession; but the book had continued to exist within that limited group (and thus it remained true that the Torah scroll had not been lost from the people).
An important point: there is no need to say that the words of that group were in fact accepted unanimously:
It is possible that some did not accept that Torah and indeed separated and assimilated.
It is also possible that there was a civil war and some died or were forced to accept the religion.
It is possible that there were arguments about the matter, and gradually the opposition diminished.
Let us add that the fact that the Torah scroll is so widespread in our day does not require that this was so in the past. It is possible that it is not unusual for a book to be lost and remain only in the hands of a small group, especially when there are wars and so on.
And in this way we have answered questions 2 and 3.
And there is no difficulty regarding where the story of the implantation itself disappeared from the pages of history, for our knowledge of the First Temple period, and certainly of the period that preceded it, is very limited (after all, even the very existence of David and Solomon was once disputed among researchers. I looked on Wikipedia at the history of the second millennium BCE, and it is very sparse).
According to this theory, one does not even need to claim that there was an implanting party trying to deceive the people regarding religion. It is possible that the priests sincerely believed in the religion, and only wanted to strengthen the faith of the masses.
This is not far-fetched, since even today a person might come along and, in order to persuade others of something he thinks is true, use every means at his disposal (and one could even understand the morality of this, since in that way he is saving the people from punishments and granting them reward from the Holy One, blessed be He).
However, it is also possible that there was a desire to deceive, out of a wish to unite the people and create a shared history (as some researchers claim), or to improve the status of the priests.

• Another possibility is that the same group of priests did not claim that the book had been transmitted to them by tradition, but rather openly declared that they were now writing down what was known to them from the people’s stories. However, in the way of stories, they added details (for example, they added that the book had been given to the entire people, etc.) and they saw nothing wrong with this, since that was not the main point of the matter (as researchers claim regarding the books of Josephus Flavius, who added details to his narratives based on his own reasoning), and in the end the book was accepted.

It is also possible that the scribes were “prophets” or possessed “divine inspiration,” and on that basis were able to add details.
And again, it is possible that some opposed the process and left / were forced to believe / etc.
One could add further possibilities (for example, there was a prophet whom they believed, and he told them to accept the Torah scroll, etc.), the basis of all these arguments being that there is no proof in the three proofs with which we began:

• There is no proof from the fact that there were events in the distant past that have been lost to us, just as without the books of Josephus Flavius many additional events would also have been lost to us.
• There is no obstacle to part of a people believing a small group under certain conditions (and even if there may have been some opposition, it is possible that part of the people accepted it, especially if they combined traditions and commandments that were already accepted among that people).
• There is no obstacle to a people accepting a book that was supposedly supposed to have been transmitted among their ancestors (for any number of reasons: the ancestors sinned and the children repented, the book was not widespread, it was written later by prophets and details were added later, etc.).

I do not need to claim that everyone was primitive and foolish, especially since it is possible that there really were people who objected; still, that does not prevent the book from being accepted.
It is important to add that the common claim is that just as it is impossible to implant the Holocaust, so too it is impossible to implant the revelation at Mount Sinai. However, the two are not comparable at all, for several reasons:

• The Holocaust has thousands of different testimonies (testimonies of different people, books written by different people, various documents, various structures), whereas Judaism has one piece of evidence only (the Torah scroll) copied millions of times.
• In the modern era there is historical continuity from a great many sources; we know exactly what happened 100 years ago and 50 years ago (and likewise 500 years ago, etc.), and therefore it is very difficult to implant a significant historical event.

(Although even in our own day there is the creation of “fake news,” and were it not for the internet and so on, it would be possible to implant minor events.)

• Today’s mindset is fundamentally scientific-critical, whereas in the past, when all peoples believed in various beliefs, it was simply much easier to accept ideas of the kind found in the Torah.

I would be very grateful for the Rabbi’s response.