Breaking the Kuzari

Preliminary outline and cover for a book on the Kuzari Argument.

Chapter 1: Introduction

What the Kuzari argument is; the importance of the argument to many frum people as a "proof"; the purpose of this book.

Chapter 2: The Kuzari Argument

The various formulations of the Kuzari. The popular version in circulation. The original (from the sefer Kuzari), Ramban's, R' Chait, and R' Gottlieb. 

The Kuzari argument as a a series of syllogisms:

Premise 1: Either Matan Torah happened as recorded in the Torah, or someone made it up.
Premise 2: Millions of people will not accept that they or millions of their ancestors witnessed something and that there was a continuous tradition about that event unless they had heard about the event from their parents (or other elder family members). They would have rejected the claim out of hand.
Conclusion 1: Therefore it can't be that Matan Torah and the mesorah were  made up, because no one would have accepted it.
 

Premise 3:  If it were possible for mass revelation events to be faked or to develop organically, we would expect more religions to use a mass revelation as their origin stories.
Premise 4:  We don't see any other religions use a a story like matan Torah: a mass revelation to the entire nation that was passed on to the descendants of the original witnesses as their origin story.
Conclusion 2: Therefore it must be that mass revelation stories can't be faked or develop organically, and the mass revelation at Har Sinia must be a real event.
 

Premise 5: (From C1 and C2) We can be sure that matan Torah happened, just as we are sure that other historical events happened.
Premise 6:  If Hashem gave the Torah on Har Sinia, then Judaism is true and all Jews are obligated in the mitzvos.
Conclusion 3:  Therefore Judaism is true and all Jews are obligated in the mitzvos.

The argument as a syllogism with all sub-premises:

Premise 1: Either Matan Torah happened as recorded in the Torah, or someone made it up.
                Sub-premise A: If it was made up, someone tried to convince everyone that it is true, like a guy standing on a soapbox in the street.

Premise 2: Millions of people will not accept that they or millions of their ancestors witnessed something and that there was a continuous tradition about that event unless they had heard about the event from their parents (or other elder family members). They would have rejected the claim out of hand.

                Sub-premise A: There were millions of witnesses at  matan Torah

                Sub-premise B: The millions of witnesses at matan Torah passed down their experiences to 

their children through the generations, giving us millions of lines of faithful witness that matan Torah happened.

                Sub-premise C: Each link in the chain of the mesorah is equally reliable.

                Sub-premise D: There is an unbroken mesorah that proves  matan torah was a real event, and the mesorah is valid.

                Sub-premise E: The first generation would have had to believe they experienced matan Torah for them to tell the story to their children as history.  People are/were aware of history as such and valued it. Family and community elders wouldn't deliberately lie or distort the history they pass to their children in the service of what they regard as a greater religious good. And the first generation wasn't forced to accept the story and pass it on as truth to their kids

                Sub-premise F: people in the distant past were skeptical in the same way that people are today, (thought the same way about things as people do today) and so would have rejected the Sinia story if it wasn't true.

                Sub-premise G: Large numbers of people can't become convinced they (or their ancestors) witnessed something if it didn't really happen.

                Sub-premise H: The people saw God give the Torah,  not some sort of trick.

                Sub-premise I: It is reasonable to accept other people's testimony that they have witnessed a miracle.

Conclusion 1: Therefore it can't be that Matan Torah and the mesorah were  made up, because no one would have accepted it.

Premise 3:  If it were possible for mass revelation events to be faked or to develop organically, we would expect more religions to use a mass revelation as their origin stories.

                Sun-premise A: Religions (except Judaism, which is the truth) are invented by charlatans who are looking to use the best justification, or religions will naturally develop the best justification.

                Sub-premise B: Mass revelation is the best, or at least a very good, justification for a religion, so we would expect more religions to use it.

Premise 4:  We don't see any other religions use a a story like matan Torah: a mass revelation to the entire nation that was passed on to the descendants of the original witnesses as their origin story. ( R' Gottlieb's NET.)

                Sub-premise A: The uniqueness of the Sinai story is proof that it happened, because it shows that a story like matan Torah can't be made up or evolve through myth formation.

                Sub-premise B: There are no mass revelations in other religious traditions comparable to matan Torah.

Conclusion 2: Therefore it must be that mass revelation stories can't be faked or develop organically, and the mass revelation at Har Sinia must be a real event.

Premise 5: (From C1 and C2) We can be sure that matan Torah happened, just as we are sure that other historical events happened.

                Sub-premise A: The Kuzari Proof establishes the historicity of matan Torah in the same way and with the same or similar confidence as other events we consider historical (having actually happened).

Premise 6:  If Hashem gave the Torah on Har Sinia, then Judaism is true and all Jews are obligated in the mitzvos.

                Sub-premise A: There is a solid mesorah about what  our ancestors witnessed at matan Torah.

                Sub-premise B: If matan Torah was a real event, then the Torah we have today is the Word of God and Judaism as it is now is obligatory.

                Sub-premise C: People will not accept new doctrines as binding unless it is attested to through mesorah. Jews have accepted the burdensome commandments in the Torah and subsequent halacha unless matan Torah really happened.

Conclusion 3:  Therefore Judaism is true and all Jews are obligated in the mitzvos.

Chapter 3: Premise 1-A

Premise + sub-premise

Discussion and refutation

(Same for every "premise" chapter)

Chapter 4: Premise 2-A

Chapter 5: Premise 2-B

Chapter 6: Premise 2-C

Chapter 7: Premise 2-D

Chapter 8: Premise 2-E

Chapter 9: Premise 2-F

Chapter 10: Premise 2-G

Chapter 11: Premise 2-H

Chapter 12: Premise 2-I

Chapter 13: Premise 3-A

Chapter 14: Premise 3-B

Chapter 15: Premise 4-A

(Includes review of R' Gottlieb's NET.)

Chapter 16: Premise 4-B

Chapter 17: Premise 5-A

Chapter 18: Premise 6-A

Chapter 19: Premise 6-B

Chapter 20: Premise 6-C

Chapter 21 : Summery of Discussion

Premises, sub-premises, and conclusions, with short summaries of the refutations to each.

Implications of the failure of the Kuzari Argument.

Where the Torah Came From

I wrote this up as a response to a question someone asked on Facebook:

If you're asking where the Torah came from, the answer is that it was too far in the past for us to know for sure, but here's a thumbnail sketch of a plausible reconstruction based on the bits and pieces we do know.

The stories in the Torah started out as oral myths. Many of them have parallels in Mesopotamian and, to a lesser extent, Egyptian mythology. At some point, scribes wrote down the myths, probably as exercises or for academic interest, and stored the writings in the various Temples' libraries. When the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom, about half of the Israelites fled south into (the much smaller) Judea. The Israelite priests likely brought the libraries from the Temples at Dan and Bethel with them.

The Judean government now had to deal with the population doubling overnight. It had to find a way to knit together the native Judeans and the Israelite refugees into a single nation and to consolidate its control over the country. The solution was to "find" a book in the Temple library that drew on the old, well-known myths. Yoshiyahu had this book read to the people, and in it they found things they had not known. It provided the idea that all of the Judean and Israelite tribes were members of a single nation, with a single ancestor and a single God that was to be worshiped at a single place, the Temple in Yerushalayim.

The text and its myths were now an important part of Jewish identity and religion, but they were not yet authoritative.  Someone, perhaps Ezra, combined all of the old written myths from the libraries (and by now the Yoshiyahu's book was also old) to produce a textual canon of the sacred myths.

In the late 2nd Temple period, there was friction between the Tzedukim and the Perushim. The Tzedukim were mainly the Temple priests, who were literate and had access to the written canon in the Temple library. They regarded the canon as an authoritative source of practice. They were also connected to the new Chashmonai dynasty, and later, to Rome, and many of them were urban aristocrats. The Perushim were the old rural aristocracy and the common people, who regarded the mimetic transition of tradition to be authoritative, as it had always been.

Eventually there was a merging of the Tzeduki and Perushi positions. The canon became TSBS, and the mimetic tradition became TSBP. Part of the gemara's project was to weave these traditions together.

The written Torah remained in flux through the medieval era, with several versions with minor variations in circulation. It was finalized by the masorties shortly before the advent of the printing press, and printed versions that sofrim could refer to froze that version as the final one.

A book on the Kuzari?

An idea I'm toying with. Should I publish the discussion of the Kuzari Proof as its own book? It could make a well-over one hundred page book all on its own, depending on how much material is in the final version and things like page size and font/formatting.

I started working on writing my book in October, and I've only just finished the fourth chapter last week. The chapters are different sizes, and other demands on my time change, so it's not strictly predictive, but at this rate, it's going to take another two years to finish.

And it's going to be really long.

I could probably have a book on the Kuzari ready in a few months. And it would cut down the length of the main book. In the main book, instead of the Kuzari being its own (long) chapter, I could reference my Kuzari book, and summarize it in a few pages in the chapter on assorted proofs for Judaism.

There's also some financial incentive. Splitting off part of the main book into a separate work means more book sales (if anyone buys them), because now there would be two books instead of one. And if people buy the smaller, cheaper Kuzari book and like it, there's a better chance they'll buy the bigger, more expensive comprehensive book.


Thoughts?

Title suggestions?