the torah says 600,000 jewish men left egypt. it says great miracles happened and the torah was given to them, something they all witnessed. it commands the jews to remember leaving egypt all the time, by saying Shema, wearing tefillin, keeping holidays, keeping sabbath, etc.
How could any jews have accepted the torah and all those commandments remembering s/t that didnt happen?
2007-01-26 05:19:59 · 8 answers · asked by iggy 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Because the stories were handed down over the years by people telling it to their children. This was before the written word. Have you ever played the game "Telephone" Stories become just that.... "Stories" after they get handed down.
2007-01-26 05:30:15 · answer #1 · answered by Chic 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is evident that something real happened even if our current knowledge of that historical time period doesn't have any evidence to back up all the accounts of the Torah. Two deductions can be made in regard to the lack of evidence: there never was any, or what evidence there was has been lost. I personally think that too often "historians" opt for version one of explaining the historicity of a religious document or experience, forgetting that version two, that the evidence could have been there but disappeared is also a possibility. Yet even still, given the possibility that there was never any evidence of the original event, this too can be broken down to two possible reason: one the event never happened, or two, the event wasn't documented in the way we think of documentation. It is easy for modern historians (used to the idea that something definitely happened in the past if and only if there is a document proving it happened) to forget that back in the time of the tribes of Israel, "history" wasn't written. It was oral. Okay, so allowing for the process of changes or of history becoming legend, we still have a very real account of a people (not one or two individuals) who encountered something completely Other... in the understanding of the Hebrew people, this Other was the Lord, Adonai, G-d, YHWH.
So, for these reasons, I agree. I don't think the Torah was something that was made up. Nor do I think that historians can conclude it was made up. The least they can say is there is no textual evidence available from that time period to prove that the event happened exactly as the Torah says. Yet, the fact that it was handed down, to me, is evidence enough that something real did happen. Shalom Shabbat.
2007-01-26 05:41:08 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, it was supposedly given to one Man...and the covenant that was made in the Torah was between God and the Israelites.
The covenants God has with Man is what is important. It is like a contract, and if they are broken, then one or the other has transgressed.
For instance, God promised a Messiah and promised judgment day...these are promises....these are God's contractual obligation, hence the reason the faith of these people is so strong.
The ten commandments was the whole Old Testament, in reality, for that was the major covenant with Moses...and that encompasses the Golden Calf and the bondage to freedom and drowning pharaoh whose heart was hardened and all that jazz.
The Torah is merely the first five books of the bible...it was a time in which they were saved. If you read Nietzsche it is the beginning of the "Resentiment of a slave Morality" which permeates Christianity today and has caused men to cease seeking the will to power, succumbing instead to self immolation and self sacrifice...the act of slaves, not nobility...a quasi reversal of "higher ideals" has occurred...and Nietzsche blames the Jewish Torah for this shift in consciousness. It is hard for me not to, but I just remember, all shamans and leaders of the past kept slaves and practiced Human Sacrifice to one degree or the other and I absolve the Jews of their altruistic roots...though I believe altruism to be the root of all totalitarianism.
2007-01-26 05:30:48 · answer #3 · answered by Hammerhead 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The best way to put it would be a quote I once read "The Bible was not faxed down from heaven. It was written by man." Sorry I do not remember who wrote this. But the point is a man wrote every religious text that we put faith in, and we all know how accurately we record history especially when we don't agree with the way it portrays our beliefs.
2007-01-26 16:33:03 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Torah is a text written by man. That's two reasons it could have been made up: it was text which could've been fictional in parts in the beginning and changed in context since it was written & men are faulty.
2007-01-26 05:41:29 · answer #5 · answered by Kristie 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is a unique facet of Judaism.
Other religions are based on one guy who has a "revelation". And then go and tells other to believe that this revelation happened.
Judaism is the only example of a mass revelation.
2007-01-29 19:12:59 · answer #6 · answered by mo mosh 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's all made up, just like all religions. Look at the history and foundation of each... some spooky means of starting and bam! tons of people follow it without question.
2007-01-26 05:28:53 · answer #7 · answered by MarauderX 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
What are you talking about? I wrote it myself.
2007-01-26 05:27:31 · answer #8 · answered by pestilpen3 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋