Sinai-Questions II
 
Moshe Ben-Chaim
 
A reader wrote:
 
 
Reader: .......masses of people did not report the events of the Sinai, only Moses gave the report.
 
Mesora: Not true, the story itself states the Moses assembled the people, and the people saw the events themselves. It actually states this numerous times in Deuteronomy. If the people did not witness the event, the story that they did, would not have been circulated by those people themselves. But they did circulate it, to the point that we have it today.
 
 
Reader: The difference, I believe, is that there are indeed millions of contemporaneous reports of the Kennedy assassination; there are not an equal number of reports of the Sinai event. There are many believers, but not so many reporters.
 
Mesora: Again you are not reading the facts. See the account in Deuteronomy yourself. The "millions of contemporaneous reports of the Kennedy assassination" are equally equated to the millions of people at the event. If you accept history, you are forced not to select which parts you accept. Additionally, the story is amazingly identical in tens of millions of editions of the Torah worldwide. Even the Kennedy incident has more variations in text than the Torah. Check for yourself.
 
 
Reader: Your essay also indicates that Christianity and Islam adopted the revelation at Sinai because it was necessarily a public event, and people need such a public event in order to believe. Therefore, there is historical corroboration. Another possible explanation is that sheer expediency made it reasonable to adopt the story. Wouldn't the application of Occam's Razor support this view? It is a much simpler explanation. Perhaps the Sinai event was completely irrelevant. Perhaps it was the fact that a tradition already existed upon which to base new religious thought, that prompted Christianity and Islam to adopt many of the stories and prophesies of Judaism. If new information is interlaced with traditional information familiar to the masses, the new information may be more palatable to the masses.
 
Mesora: That's exactly the motive for other religions who degrade Judaism, to simultaneously accept the Sinai event, as it lends credence to their own newly formed religions. But this is no argument against the truth of the event, it only explains a motive for alien people accepting the story, even though it is contrary to their goals.
 
 
Reader: I believe the reason many Judaic ideals and ideas are found in Christianity and Islam is that Judaism is so elegant, and so beautifully simplistic. It can be likened to an automobile that uses an internal combustion engine. When such a vehicle was created, steam powered automobiles existed. But the predominant mode of transportation was horse and buggy. The horse and buggy crowd strenuously objected to powered vehicles. Slowly but surely, powered transportation became the dominant mode. As it turns out, an automobile using internal combustion proved to have greater mass appeal than a steam powered automobile. Now, anyone wanting to introduce a new vehicle and capture the market in automobiles, might think it reasonable to embrace an elegant technology with established mass appeal, rather than selling a vehicle as cumbersome as one powered by steam. It doesn't matter whether the prototype internal combustion engine worked the first time, or how many refinements had to have been made over time. It doesn't matter how many people observed the development of that engine. For the new entrepreneur, all that matters is that internal combustion is more appealing than whatever else is available. It was more refined, more elegant, and more popular. So too was Judaism more elegant and popular than, say, Zoroastrianism, as the basis for a religion such as Christianity. The fact that awesome events are told in Torah, doesn't hurt, and perhaps gives it greater appeal, but the reason it was adopted by Christianity was that it was already a foundation upon which to build something new.
Where is this analysis wrong?
 
Mesora: Like I said, this is exactly what the other religions wanted - mass appeal, not a search for truth. You are admitting yourself that what Christianity desired was popularity. If Christianity had any truth to it, let it stand by its own codes, bare its ideals, and suffer analysis of the people. But don't try to market it by claiming to sell Judaism, and then sell Christianity, that is dishonest, a contradiction, and transparent.
You argument only strengthens the truth in Judaism, and the fallacy of all other religions.


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