So how did Judaism start? What are Judaism’s real origins? Must be some scam or other. We have examined several. Here is another.
You know the scenario:– an ancient patriarch rides into his family camp holding a scroll in his arms and declares, ‘I have just received this latest delivery from Amazon. We must follow all the instructions.’
This hilarious nonsense is that which many people believe was the source of Judaism and most religions.
It must have been a single person – say Abraham, Moses – convincing a very small group at first who were bound by family fidelity to believe him and then this being spread.
It is as comforting as it is illogical and unintelligent.
‘No. Surely this is the truth?!’ every secularist screams.
Well – to be very Jewish – Yes and No.
If your claim is that one man experienced an otherwise unwitnessed revelation or miracle or interview then that is different.
This has been believed by billions. It is the claim of nearly all other religions.
But no one ever even tried to tell the Jewish people that only one person witnessed Sinai – and that Sinai event is the only one that matters.
Examining the Flawed Sinai Narrative
On examination, this narrative for Sinai is utterly ridiculous.
First, remember, our delusional patriarch must use the specific claim that he had passed down to him an unbroken family tradition of an entire nation simultaneously witnessing Sinai.
He has not, like in all other religions, used an unwitnessed revelation, which is pure faith and easily-dismissed.
His scam must be precisely the Torah’s account of Sinai.
Our scenario is everyone in the first generation whom our ‘survivor’ fooled, telling the same lie to his children.
Saying, ‘Well, it could have happened’ is childish.
Do we find a parallel in history when we examine the detail?
The First Generation’s Importance
The first generation would all have to sign up to the lie.
They must omit him and claim that their forebears had told them they were in an unbroken chain of witnesses back to Sinai.
You cannot make up a statement to the actual people to whom it was actually meant to have happened
It is equally impossible for an entire generation to make up such a lie.
How could they carry this off?
They would have all to conspire to claim that which they knew was nonsense.
This idea was first dismissed in the 9th century by the polymath Rabbi Sadya Gaon in Emunot V’deot.
Also the very Torah this first generation followed would be known by them to be a fantasy.
They would have to lie to their own children about each detail because the Torah describes all that happened.
Challenges with the Survivor’s Lie
This ‘survivor’s lie’ can only start in a small group, like a modern cult.
But even here, no one would accept this ultimately generations later.
Where did the millions of Jews mentioned in the hoax Book go?
The Jews all agreed to each element and starting following all the laws of the Torah only because each had had that same mass experience.
They would not only have to claim dishonestly that the first generation at the imaginary Sinai had collectively experienced every detail.
But now they would have to explain the extinction of an entire people, leaving behind only the sole survivor, who inexplicably is never mentioned – yet was the one who now tells them of their lost history.
This is impossible.
Each of the first many generations would have to be lying as he told his children and grandchildren, ‘My father told me that his father had told him that his …. …. was at Sinai.’
The Authentic Jewish Narrative
The real first recipients – one generation after Sinai – were convinced only by ‘Your mother and I and all of our people saw and heard the Mount Sinai revelation personally …’
And the following generations till today have been told – ‘My father and mother and everyone told me that they had each seen and heard….’
They absolutely did not hear that grandpa alone is the only survivor and told us this.
Never ever has that been the Jewish narrative.
‘We all saw and heard simultaneously…’ is the only claim ever made.
The elimination of all the other millions of Jews who were claimed to have witnessed Sinai – would have been an event which could be investigated.
Just try it out with your kids.
Pretend you are the surviving child of a vast noble family of thousands all of whom drank milk at 9.00 pm every night for 1000 years until Midsummers Night last year, when the family of thousands just disappeared with their milk mugs.
Uniqueness of the Sinai Claim
We find no other initiating event which was claimed to be performed before an entire, discreet group of many thousands from whom there is an unbroken chain of testimony.
It is simply impossible to sustain such a lie.
Whatever you might think of Jews, it is insane to suggest that at least two generations lied brazenly to their own children.
There is no known case in history – because it is impossible!
There would always be deathbed confessions.
Someone somewhere would soon smell a rat.
Mythology and Traditions
Every culture has innumerable mythological tales passed on, in all seriousness, down the generations.
Yes, this was the most common way of creating traditions.
However, never ever do we have a mythology claiming events that happened collectively and publically to the actual listeners or to those they could question.
Parents pass on their beliefs to children in all good faith.
But if they contain matter which can be scrutinised by that next generation, then the mythology dies there and then.
All traditions rely on there being no way of testing the myth.
Historical Comparisons
In our times, Communist Russia or China did not lie to a generation, they brutalised it.
The Germans were not lied to about themselves. The lies were about those they already hated and despised as vermin and a danger to der Vaterland.
Paul certainly did not lie to those he converted. He spoke the absolute truth – about his vision.
This was a real experience for him!
All other faiths are similarly ‘true’ in that real people experienced things real to them.
But vitally, no listener could ever empirically test whether the unwitnessed event occurred.
No tradition that has survived has even attempted to spread a palpable, demonstrable lie about a public event to their children.
There is never a single judicially-acceptable record or verifiable chain of testimony.
Fraud and Belief
Yes, a fraudster and demagogue will capture his crowd but they will aver only that they heard from him and believed what he said, whether ridiculous in others’ eyes or not.
But the Jews are clever – aren’t they?
However, ‘there is always a first time’ so we must consider other problems with this theory.
The Written Tradition
Your tradition was all always written down in one Book perfectly reproduced for over 3000 years.
The Yemenites have had it for 2850 years, the Samaritans have had it for 2500 years.
The Dead Sea Scrolls prove its accuracy for 2300 years.
In addition there were thousands of other written texts.
So, whatever was accepted by the Jews was always written and practised from the start.
We can go through each year right back to Sinai.
And please – the Jews were familiar with mountebanks, volcanic eruptions, storms, earthquakes, and so the ‘wonders’ of Sinai were evidently very different.
Accepting the Event
Thus, we accept that something must have happened and this cannot be a family fantasy that just grew and became more complex.
That ‘something’ probably involved all the Jews and a mountain.
It certainly convinced them.
That can be agreed if you consider that below.
“It’s in the Family” Hypothesis
Let us presume somehow it was a small group of simple proto-Jews.
Remember a small group can be convinced of anything except one thing.
That is a lie about the present – something they can check up on.
Testing Family Traditions
Tell a proud Inuit that his family have a tradition of being brilliant at frying big fish.
He’ll frown and shout back to the igloo,
‘Hey, Mom-uit, have we got a traditional way of frying big fish??’
“Nope. Ugh, we’re civilized folk. We jus’ eat it raw. Just like the muktuk I gave you for breakfast. And yeah, I know it’s not technically a fish but a big mammal. Now, no more questions!”
Tell a Jew – “Your mom has a tradition that she heard from her mom that they have a tradition in their families of having a tradition in their families that they received their chopped fish recipe from Mount Everest 3000 years ago.”
He will just ring his mother to find out: “No, it’s Great-Aunt Zadie’s recipe, blockhead!”
Lies About the Present
You cannot tell people that they have a living tradition, if it does not exist.
This is a lie about the present – that they today have this tradition – something they can check up on.
You cannot tell somebody that his father told him that his grandfather had told him something if his father had never said this.
Verifying Claims
Just try telling the Jews that they have a tradition today about anything, say coming on time to weddings.
Whether in 2000 BCE; 1000 BCE; 0 CE; 1000 CE; 2022 CE – they will frown and check.
Unless it was in the family they will say, ‘‘Nop. Never happened. Not in our family. In our family?? On time to a wedding!!?? You need a shrink!’
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