The first proof is, that unless G-d Himself intervened and visibly prevailed upon the people to receive this unique G-dly Law from Him, the people of Israel, or for that matter any other people, would never have accepted this kind of a set of laws from anybody else. If the whole nation of Israel actually did not receive this particular set of laws the way it is claimed by the promulgator of this law, then this law could not have been perpetuated even for one generation. For no father would ever earnestly and consciously mislead his son to believe in a complete falsehood even temporarily, let alone hand it down to him for the rest of his life, and generations after him. It is especially true when the falsity and lie imposes special burdens, hardships, and serious obligations and duties on the son throughout his life. Thus, as far as Judaism is concerned—and I refer to Torah-true Judaism, with its six hundred and thirteen commandments to be observed in the strictest way and minutest details every day of our lives—it is inconceivable that all of these commandments would be handed down to us by each one of our fathers as the explicit words of G-d if they were not convinced and had not actually heard, seen, and witnessed by themselves its true occurrence.The refutation: just read Da'as Hedyot's insightful observation in his post Finding Religion in College!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Bad Proofs of Torah #1 - The Burden of Mitzvot
The "Acceptance Of A Burden On Themselves And Their Prodigy [sic]" proof is the first of Gottlieb's "10 Proofs of Torah" (hey kids, collect 'em all!) in his book, The Inescapable Truth - a Sound Approach to Genuine Religion. Here is the opening paragraph:
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7 comments:
FH,
The Hedyot makes a good observation, but the main problem with these people is that they don't have a clue about ancient history. Nothing. They don't know anything about Jewish history. Nothing, they're clueless. But not only are they ignorant, they have absolutely no concept of how things and ideas develop in the real world. Although I'm very used to this already, it still doesn't cease to amaze me every time I come across it. It's beyond ridiculous.
I forgot how much I can't stand this argument. It's so annoying. Do people honestly think that their parents can say confidently that they are sure they have an unbroken change going back to Moshe? Would anyone know if 6 or 7 generations back you had an ancestor who was a convert? No? Then this entire argument breaks down. And the notion that groups don't form silly historical misconceptions that they collectively convince themselves is just silly: Look at in the United States where almost half the country is convinced that the country was founded on Christianity in a very explicit form and the other half is convinced that it wasn't. One of those sets has developed a very distorted view of history. And that's only been over a few hundred years.
Adherents of other religions accept many restrictive laws, taught to children by their parents. These includes the imposition of "special burdens, hardships, and serious obligations and duties." I suppose all of those people are really faking it.
(Don't laugh. Its a widely held implicit belief that only frum Jews are sincere in their beliefs.)
>>> Acceptance Of A Burden On Themselves And Their Prodigy
Prodigy??? do you mean progeny??
YIKES - believe it or not, that is how the original has it! I didn't pick up the obvious mistake (assuming that the author wasn't making an intentional pun, claiming that B'nai Yisrael are indeed prodigies!) as this was ocr'ed and it passed the spell check. Thanks for catching this boo boo. I'll add [sic] to the post.
Unbroken chain from Moshe? I humbly beg to differ...
“Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the Law in the house of the LORD.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan who read it… Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king (Josiah) saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it in the presence of the king. When the king heard the words of the book of the Law, he tore his clothes…” (2 Kings 22).
Even the high priest didn't know what was going on 700 years after Moshe!
Furthermore... if the written Torah was lost and everyone was clueless, what does that say about the Oral Torah? Let's put on our thinking caps!
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