Q&A: The Argument from Witnesses Who Don’t Know What They Saw
The Argument from Witnesses Who Don’t Know What They Saw
Question
Regarding the testimonial argument for the revelation at Mount Sinai, the giving of the Torah, and the Tablets of the Covenant: we find a great deal in the Sages about the size of the tablets, their shape, how they were written, and so on. For example, in the Jerusalem Talmud, Shekalim (6:1):
How were the tablets written? Rabbi Hanina ben Ahiyah, Rabbi Judah ben Gamliel, says: five on this tablet and five on that tablet, as it says, “And He wrote them upon two tablets of stone” (Deuteronomy 4) — five on this tablet and five on that tablet. But the Rabbis say: ten on this tablet and ten on that tablet, as it says, “And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, the ten utterances” — ten on this tablet and ten on that tablet. Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai says: twenty on this tablet and twenty on that tablet, as it is written, “And He wrote them upon two tablets of stone” — twenty on this tablet and twenty on that tablet. Rabbi Simai said: forty on this tablet and forty on that tablet, as it is written, “Written on both their sides” (Exodus 32).
How can there be a factual dispute about something so foundational, something that was supposedly transmitted to the children of Israel in front of millions of people? If there was such broad testimony to the event having taken place, then seemingly the witnesses cannot come back with all kinds of different and bizarre stories about the number of utterances on the tablets, whether they were written on one side, two, or four, and so on.
That seems, on its face, to contradict this testimony.
If these were witnesses in court, they’d be thrown down all the stairs, but for some reason testimony whose main factual details were not transmitted uniformly — where there are disputes about the plain facts of reality — is still enough for many people to claim that it is strong enough to prove revelation. I’m baffled.
Answer
A strange argument. Why is the detail about the shape of the tablets important? The tradition did not transmit the shape of the tablets, only their content. Even the midrashim here are deriving from verses; they are not passing along information that comes from a tradition.
Beyond that, midrashim about the shape of the tablets are not trying to establish facts at all. Why is that fact important? They are interpreting the verses, apparently in order to convey some message.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the question. There is no tradition at all about the description of the tablets (other than that they were two tablets with writing in the holy tongue), only about the content. I don’t know what my grandmother’s shack in Auschwitz looked like or what she produced in the factory where she worked, but I know that she was there and suffered from hunger and hard labor, and that they killed members of her family, because that’s what matters to know.
What kind of comparison is that? The tablets are not a marginal detail. It’s like executing someone on the basis of witnesses testifying to a murder, except that one says it was with a gun and the other says it was with a knife. The main thing is that they saw a murder?!
If you insist, then there’s no point in discussing it. Serious questions are the kind that expect an answer, which means one is supposed to read the answers one gets and not just repeat the same thing over and over. I’m done.
Shabtai,
If the witnesses themselves were arguing about what the tablets looked like, that really would arouse suspicion. But what happened is that the witnesses did not transmit those details at all, only the content and the fact that these were two stone tablets. It’s like the fact that we know Socrates was executed by drinking poison, but we do not know what type of poison it was, or its color or quantity.
Whether the detail is important or not, I don’t know, but it seems it was important to the Amoraim at least.
Even if it isn’t important, it is certainly an interesting detail. If I had witnessed the giving of the Tablets of the Covenant, I should be able to describe them in a basic way. No judge anywhere in the world would accept testimony in which the details of the story contradict one witness to the next. So why should I believe the content of the tablets if their form and what was written on them are matters of dispute?