The Kuzari Proof – 3 Million Witnesses Can Be Wrong

» left by Eyal Lepkin

from Toronto ON 6 years 164 days ago.

I heard a presentation like this. I'm glad there are articles like this to clarify the errors in logic, otherwise I may have been taken in.

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» left by Eldan Cohen 4 years 294 days ago.

Martin, stop your obsession with 'proof' already - everyone knows that 'proof' of God's existence, or the divinity of the 'Torah', would turn us all into robots. Why not be grateful for God's mercifull hiddenness? The value of freely choosing 'light' over 'dark' is the reason we're here.

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» left by Anonymous 3 years 271 days ago.

Eldy is that really you?  Good to hear from you.  Listen, it isn't my obsession with proof, it's someone trying to pawn something off as proof which isn't.  I can respect the honesty of saying "there is no proof".  However, someone offering a 'proof' which is so poorly backed up (I'm speaking of Kuzari proponents) is nothing less than hucksterism. 

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» left by David from England 3 years 86 days ago.

I am an Oxford “educated” lawyer who spends a lot of time learning Gemara. I am an absolute agnostic and therefore an ultra-orthodox Jew. I came across your piece and think it might not be quite fair to your great great grand parents. They were not a bunch of superstitious fools. You got your brain from them. I am sure you will not publish my comments which I have interspersed in italics as for you they are heresy. However if you wish to please do. My address is     . Name David.

 

The Kuzari Proof – If misunderstood then 3 Million Witnesses Can Be Wrong

 

The Kuzari Proof is a famous proof of the validity of Judaism and is commonly used in outreach programs to convince estranged Jews to return to the fold of observance. (1) It was developed originally by the 11th century poet Yehuda Halevi as a response to the loss of Judaism's monopoly on monotheism. It was designed specifically to prove that the Jews had a unique theological gift: the direct and public revelation of God to all the ancient Israelites at Mt. Sinai. (2) In recent years, the 'proof' has been offered as a proof of many things. Most commonly it attempts to prove: the existence of God, His revelation to the ancient Israelites at Sinai, His authorship of the Torah, and the resulting inerrancy of the Torah. My purpose is not to argue for or against the veracity of any of the above claims, but instead to show why the Kuzari proof is not a proof of any of them. Part of the search for truth entails the culling out of implausible options. It is my hope that the de-legitimization of the Kuzari proof will lead the observant and the secular alike to come closer to the truth.

 

The Kuzari 'proof' has been proffered in several forms and incarnations but the gist is as follows:

 

1) 3 million Jews witnessed the revelation of God at Sinai. (3)

 

2) Starting with the witnessing generation, one generation has told the story to the next, leading us, in the current generation, to be inductive witnesses to this event.

 

3) It is impossible to fake a large public event and its subsequent intergenerational transmission (with inferred acceptance) as described in steps 1 and 2, thus the original event must have happened.

 

It would seem to be common sense that events with many witnesses cannot be faked. However, history has taught us that many who have invoked 'common sense' have been frustrated by how rare indeed a sense it is.

 

Needless to say, I find many problems with this 'proof'. I will take each in sequential order.

 

First, I address the '3 million Jews witnessed the revelation' claim. In logical discourse, one cannot assume what one is trying to prove. You cannot assume that the Torah is inerrant in order to prove that it is inerrant. The 3 million figure (or 600,000 adult males to be more precise) comes from the Torah. (4) One cannot use this figure then, to prove that there were 3 million witnesses to an event which then makes the Torah inerrant. To do so is to construct a tautological proof, or in lay terms... a self-validating statement. The statement "if it rains, it will be raining" is syntactically valid, but is semantically meaningless, in that it is tautological. The proof of the inerrancy of the Torah cannot be made by using statements that require the Torah to be inerrant. In short, we do not know, independent of the Torah claim, that there were 3 million witnesses at Sinai, hence the proof falls apart right there.

 

The number of witnesses is irrelevant – completely not the point. The essential point is that the claim is that the entire people were there. There was no one tell the story to. Allegedly everyone saw and heard it. The next generation heard it from every one in the entire nation. That is a quantum leap from the proof being that 600,000 or 3 million or 10 million witnessed it. No one took this experience from spin doctors. If 50 million people witness something and then are wiped out, we have no evidence and no paper trail. Their history must be taught ab initio to strangers. That is no way what the Kuzari is claiming. Its claim, and it is a cunning ploy, admit it, is that the whole lot were there and since then have apparently followed what ever was told to them then. And absolutely centrally they got a big free Book to take home and that seems authentic beyond reasonable doubt (see later)

 

Next we look at the 'witnessed the revelation of God at Sinai' part of the first statement. As I can recall from my Hebrew school days, the voice of God at Sinai was so powerful it could 'tear the soul from your body'. I also remember descriptions of smoke and fire similar to the poor Technicolor animations of the DeMille classic depicting the same. (5) Now Joan Rivers has a voice that in my mind can tear the soul out of my body as she as she squawks and screeches about the stars' fashions at the Oscars. I am in no particular hurry to worship Joan Rivers nor Cecil B. DeMille. What I mean to get across comically is that special effects capable of being produced cheaply these days by Industrial Light and Magic and the good folks over at Lucasfilm hardly proves God for me. A simple retort might be "but no one believes the fantastic stories and special effects of today to be true". Tell that to the people who suffered mass panic and hysteria at the radio transmission of Welles' "The War of The Worlds" in the 1938. (6) In summation, as we build here, for statement 1, we have 3 million unproved witnesses witnessing something they say was fiery, scary and spoke with a loud voice. If one were to tell a Kuzari adherent of UFO sightings, they would likely start to ask questions as to what other explanations could explain this phenomenon: why not here too? (7)

 

This is difficult for a poor mind like mine to understand. I think you have crushed together several good points. 1) The experience seems to rely on emotional responses (Joan Rivers example); 2) Mass hallucination or fooling a huge number of people in public is a fairly well-known occurrence; 3) The witnesses are “unproved” – we cannot identify them or their veracity. 4) Any fantastical event can be supported by asking, “How else can it be explained? It must have happened.”

 

Well the points, if I have understood them, have clear answers and were answered 2000 years ago in the Talmud. You are correct about emotion and hallucination. This is why we have an unchanged Book (the freebie) dating from that alleged event recalling every detail and requiring the Jews to change every aspect of their daily behaviour to fit in to the detail.

 

That the Book is unchanged seems very likely - because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and that copies from the most scattered Jewish communities are identical to the letter. It seems reasonable to presume this exactitude did not suddenly start only 2000 years ago. And the mass of innumerable details – whether of places, people and events, or laws and customs – seems beyond reasonable doubt to suggest that it was not just knocked up one evening by a group of revolutionaries. On the other hand, the Kuzari seems to suggest beyond reasonable doubt that it was dumped on your great great …. Grandma, and mine, as a single unified code.

 

Now we look at statement 2, specifically at the part which says: starting with the witnessing generation, we have an unbroken chain of transmission. The 'starting with the witnessing generation' part is key. It says that it is impossible to get a generation (a large group of people) to accept anything as an accurate account of history which was not known to be an accurate account history. Yet when you poke a Kuzari adherent for proof of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt you quickly get this response: "The Egyptians did not record their defeats." (8) Well hang on a second here, does not that suggest that the Egyptians published a history and the greater than 3 million Egyptians that read it accepted it as true even though they knew it was untrue? (9) So can you cause multitudes to accept a false history or not? Which is it? The answer cannot be, if we are to have a sensible conversation, yes in the case of the Egyptians and no in the case of the Israelites. It also cannot be the answer that the Egyptians were embarrassed by defeat and thus motivated to accept the faked history because we cannot know if the Israelites also were not embarrassed by some historical event and thus were motivated to accept a revised history of unique divine revelation. Recall, we cannot assume the Torah as an accurate account of history to prove that the Torah is an accurate account of history. Keeping our eye on the ball, it is NOT the issue here whether or not there were slaves in Egypt, nor is it the issue as to what the actual history of the region was. The issue is that you cannot, at once, claim that you both can and cannot cause a large number of people to accept a false history. The Kuzari proof and discussions of the Kuzari proof are fraught with these sorts of asymmetric applications of explanatory logic. You cannot suck and blow from the same explanatory pipe at the same time.

 

Quite true, you would get covered in smoke. Most unhealthy. Your point is that any historian recording current events must be accurate or he would be immediately rejected. But you have no doubt realised that that applies only to false claims of false events or non-existent people. If a public historian is commanded to omit ignominious defeats – as for example all the histories of all dictators and tyrants prove – no-one utters a squeak – Soviet Russia, China, 3rd Reich Germany - the list is endless. So omissions and a nationally acceptable gloss on events are only too common. Conversely, it would take an absolute dictator to impose a completely false set of events and make the people admit they happened – even Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini or Mao did not succeed in doing that for long. Look how the Soviet Russia collapsed and revealed the utter cynicism of all Russians in the “truth” of its propaganda. Yes, Moses could have been a Stalin figure and forced the whole “lie” on the Jews – but then it is beyond reasonable doubt that no such figure would have allowed a lie so full of his own and his people’s innumerable failures and weaknesses. Further, it is beyond reasonable doubt that on his regime’s demise, there would have been eventually a regime who would undo all his weird laws and lies.

 

Next we address statement 3, the inerrancy and incorruptibility of generational transmission of this revelation. Note: this statement is really just a summation of points 1 and 2 where the true Kuzari argument rests. Many people have accused the Torah of suffering from 'broken telephone' transmission. The orthodox authorities have correctly retorted that they have proof, archaeological no less, that the Torah has shifted perhaps 2 or 3 letters at most during all of its transmission. Parenthetically, for those keeping score and who just noted an asymmetrical application of explanatory logic, a gold star to you. You correctly noted that all of the sudden archaeology IS an acceptable proof that the Torah has not changed through the generations, yet archaeology IS NOT acceptable as proof that there were not Israelites in Egypt.

 

Again you have fused two distinct points: 1) archaeology proving a positive fact and/or archaeology not finding evidence for a claim; and 2) the acceptability of archaeology. If you wish to chide the Orthodox for rejecting archaeology until it helps them, that’s fine. But the central and substantive point here is whether archaeology finding evidence is parallel to archaeology not finding evidence. Obviously they are worlds apart. If the archaeology is sound no-one can question a find. The lack of a find merely means we are still in doubt. However remote it is, there exists the possibility that proof will be found. So, sorry, no asymmetry.

 

There are today numerous addition finds which have proven numerous once derided “lies”.

 

Example - No doubt you would have powerfully argued that the text of the Old Testament is an entirely corrupted and fluid body of fables which slowly amalgamated into the present very irregular and un-unified form. This of course was the argument of Biblical Criticism – a mass of deductive speculation based on the impossibility of the Torah being so old and so unchanged and from a single source. This seemed absolutely reasonable and showed how superstitious and ignorant we Jews were. Then, crash – The Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

If the Torah did not significantly change over the centuries, which is a statement I will accept due to archaeological supporting evidence, the question becomes: - which is the central plank of the Kuzari - why would any people accept the Torah as history, as the ancient Israelites seemed to, if its contents (the description of the revelation at Sinai) were not known to be true? So they must be true however fantastical - In typical rabbinic style, let me answer a question with a question: Why would the multitudes that accepted the Gospels as gospel, accept them unless they knew somehow that Jesus had indeed miraculously fed the multitudes fish and loaves of bread as the gospels describe? (10) "After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, 'Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.' " (John 6:14) (11) The problem here exists in yet another asymmetrical application of explanatory logic. If you cannot pervert a generational transmission of a miraculous event, then adherents to the Kuzari proof must by definition, accept that Jesus fed the multitudes by miracle. To be clear, I am not saying whether Jesus fed the multitudes or not, nor am I proving or disproving a revelation at Sinai, I am simply saying that the evidence of cultural widespread acceptance of an event as a miracle cannot be the proof of Judaism because it proves antithetical Jewish and Christian miracles at the same time.

 

Here you really have missed the major distinctions because you have presumed what the argument is. The Jesus miracles as all other miracles were witnessed by large numbers but:

 

THE WITNESSES’ TRANSMISSION - We do not know who they actually were and to whom specifically they passed on their observation. They all died without trace and without any even loosely claimed family or academic descendants. Here they were merely “early Christians” or “the early church”. Conversely, long genealogies are given for the transmitting generations and even today some Sefardic families have wedding contracts reciting 15 generations. Jews have always kept strictly to their own families within the inner observant circles and passed on their religion with their genes. Never the mind the DNA.

 

LACK OF AN AUTHENTIC TEXT - There is not a scrap of evidence of any clear or plausible transmission for other faiths. They have no text except eg a contradictory set of “New Testaments” dating at least 200 – 500 years after the events. The first Aramaic versions were laughed at by all the Jews at the time as being amateur mishmashes of the Talmud and pagan myths. Thus Paul had to write only in Greek and for the ignorant pagans.

 

REJECTION BY THOSE IN THE KNOW - Jews only converted from ignorance, torture, bribery or other factors – but no knowledgeable Talmudic Jew could ever accept Christianity as true – because he knew the facts from the Talmud itself – written well before Jesus was in anyway being used by Paul as a candidate for the top job. This happened only after the Talmud had been written down – if not actually finally edited.

 

So the Christian miracles and entire story has no trace of transmission except one claimed after a gap of hundreds of years.

 

The Jewish story has no such gap and has an authenticated text and authenticated line of human transmission (with the noses).. These are absolutely central distinctions you have missed.

 

In summation we see that the Kuzari proof is a failed proof because of fundamental flaws in logic. The two main fundamental flaws are assuming that which is trying to be proved and asymmetrical uses of explanatory logic at the convenience of the argument. The Kuzari proof is an attempt to prove the divine revelation at Sinai which, in turn, is a cornerstone of Jewish faith. (12) For the orthodox that appear vexed at the decline of Judaism, the message is clear: The rest of us will accept what you have to say when you provide cogent proof. The Kuzari proof is not cogent and the burden of proof is on you.

 

The asymmetrical uses of explanatory logic are only apparent to you because you have colluded or omitted points as explained. Your Jewish education was obviously appalling and your inability to learn the Talmud in the original and really study the sources has led to the same mistakes as 2000 years of other brilliant but ignorant people.

 

In criminal law in England the burden of proof – as you mentioned it – is beyond reasonable doubt. In civil cases it is on a balance of probabilities.

 

For someone enjoying a normal “healthy” hedonistic 21st century life style – whether Jew-ish or not - I imagine giving all that up to crunch dry unleavened bread and shuffle around in long black Jewish gabardine (Merchant of Venice), and to try truly to see and experience what it is like to live in an entirely alternative Torah world - would need an atomic bomb under their bed – no several atomic bombs - so “beyond reasonable doubt” is going to change nothing.

 

So please don’t persuade yourself that beyond reasonable doubt proof ain’t there. Just remember how brilliant and ruthless in argument the Talmud is. The Jewish mind over 3000 has question all this again and again. You are merely another to have tried to fathom it.

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» left by Martin Winer from Toronto, ON CAN 3 years 85 days ago.

You make several points all of which seems to rely on the Dead Sea Scrolls as proof of the inerrancy of the Torah.  This is a common mistake of people who refuse to read any book other than what they're claiming to be the word of God. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls date to around 150 BCE to 70CE.  If the text has not changed since then, you've proven the uninterrupted transmission from that point forward.  So what?  Thousands of scribes in thousands of cultures have meticulously copied texts without errors for centuries. 

The supposed Sinai revelation was centuries before this.  You undoubtedly accuse the Christians of manufacturing evidence of Christ's miracles some 400 years after the fact.  How then do I know that the text presented at Sinai was the same text present in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Undoubtedly the answer will come back: "but they all accepted it and transmitted it.  That's the proof!"  Problem... They couldn't read.  Since you're 'educated' at Oxford, you might stop in at the library there.  Look for one called: "Did God Have a Wife" by William Dever page 28 or so.  He'll tell you all about the fact that literacy was at around 5% in the ROMAN empire (much later).  He'll also tell you that literacy in ancient Israel was certainly much much lower.

So listen, while you're hanging around Oxford, having afternoon tea, try this on for size.  The Torah was codified in ancient Babylon around 500BCE.  It was compiled by scribes from several tales common to the day.  Revealing laws on mountains was a very common tale.  Another book you might try is Thomas William Doane: "Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions".  There is a whole chapter on the revelation at Sinai - Receiving the Ten Commandments. 

People accepted the Torah for the same reason the US stimulus bill passed:  People are dumb and incapable of and unwilling to read large documents.  The Torah was thus, the first of many 'New Deals'. 

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» left by noam from brooklyn ny 1 year 312 days ago.

what about the fact that,1. in the Torah it list the pig as the only animal with one kosher sign but not the other, was Moses a zoologist? 2.eighth day is circumcision day, now the eighth day is the only day with a peak in vitamin k and prothrombin in the babys life which increase the rate of blood clotting.3. codes mathematically hidden within the script of the Torah, with messages of the same basic related ideas found on one page 4.if the tranmision was madee up there would be hundreds if not thousands of groups of people claiming to hear god, but there is only one that has endured 5. what about the fact that jews are considered gods chosen and if we sin were cursed but if not were blessed, people have tried to destroy the jews for thousands of year yet were still hear, and doing relatively well in accordance to science technology and noble prizes.just shows that god hasn't turned his back and is just waiting for us to return.6.almost all Jewish priests have the same dna chromosome in them meaning that they ultimately were related to Ahron the priest form the Torah 7.the Torah explains how rain occurs before most of the world new "A mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the soil"(Genesis, 2:6), clearly evaporation..thats just the Torah.. the oral tradition(Talmud) which goes back about a thousand years has as many if not more proof of the divinity of Torah because they got down through tradition what science is only solving now.

 

also the book of prophets has prophesy that are being fulfilled in our day and age...ther is only one argument to refute all these facts... that is... EVERYTHING IS ONE INFINITELY BIG COINCIDENCE !!!(which is absurd, because no one would expect to roll a double six on dice even five times in a row. because that's a great coincidence... but all the facts of the Torah and its divinity are infinitely bigger so know one could believe that they are all coincidences too)

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» left by Anonymous 1 year 107 days ago.

The whole Kuzari principal is based on the assumption that an individual could not have came later in history, and "reminded" people about the whole Sinai and 10 plagues story. Certainly people would have asked why their parents have no knowledge of this! This however, is only an assumption, which I will prove to be wrong. The Mormons believe the third book of Nephi to be true, I will quote some here, but feel free to check it yourself. 3 Nephi chap. 9

1And it came to pass that there was a avoice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying:

2Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall arepent; for the devil blaugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen!

3Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I aburned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be asunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5And behold, that great city aMoronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

3 Nephi chap 10

1And now behold, it came to pass that all the people of the land did ahear these sayings, and did witness of it. And after these sayings there was silence in the land for the space of many hours;

2For so great was the astonishment of the people that they did cease lamenting and howling for the loss of their kindred which had been slain; therefore there was silence in all the land for the space of many hours.

3And it came to pass that there came a voice again unto the people, and all the people did hear, and did witness of it, saying:

4O ye people of these agreat cities which have fallen, who are descendants of Jacob, yea, who are of the house of Israel, how oft have I bgathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have cnourished you.

3 Nephi chap. 11

8And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they asaw a Man bdescending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them.

9And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:

10Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

11And behold, I am the alight and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter bcup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in ctaking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the dwill of the Father in all things from the beginning.

12And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude afell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been bprophesied among them that Christ should cshow himself unto them after his ascension into heaven.

The Kuzari principal would tell me, that these stories must be true, because the people would not accept an individual's story about their ancestor's, if their parents did not know of it! But not only could they only ask their ancestors, they could have asked anyone in the world. Now I certainly don't believe the Mormons books, but when you base a theory, on the extent of people's tendency to believe to an absurd extent, you are producing a very weak theory indeed. There is one other problem with the Kuzari Argument: for it to be valid, there must be an unbroken chain of tradition starting from the population witnessing the miracles described in the Torah. However, some text in the Old Testament suggests otherwise. According to the book of Judges, And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers:and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. (Judges 2:8-12)

Furthermore, in 2 Kings "the book of the law" is discovered, serving as a reminder of previously forgotten traditions.

And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD ... And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying, Go ye, enquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22:8-13)

These excerpts seem to raise doubt upon any claim that the oral tradition of the miracles in the Torah were maintained continuously by more than a minority of the population. Therefore, it would seem that the population inevitably accepted a history presented to them (whether true or false) by a small group of people. If taken at face value, this on it's own is enough to invalidate the whole argument.

And an event that should have been remembered forever, and was forgotten, is the world wide flood. Surely Noah and his three sons explained to their children why they were the only humans alive, and that god now gave them the seven laws. No one should have ever doubted, who is god, their parents, going way back to Noah, would have a story no one would doubt. Accordingly, the world wide flood must have never happened, because something like this would never be forgotten.

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» left by Andrew 18 days 21 hours ago.

Haha... They weren't ready for this David.

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