Usefulness of "Kuzari" style (Sinai) arguments?

[MadeUpName2]

I’m curious about the utility (for Catholics) of a family of apologetic arguments developed within Orthodox Judaism.

Many Christian apologists, including Catholics, argue that the Resurrection miracle proves that Christianity is true. (And Catholics can also point to other miracles, like Fatima and Zeitoun.)

Interestingly, Orthodox Jewish apologists have their own family of historical miracle arguments, which are associated with a medieval Jewish theological / apologetic treatise called the Kuzari. Kuzari-style arguments try to prove that God must have appeared to the Israelite people at Sinai.

These arguments come in a few different varieties. Some are based on logical syllogisms, like some Christian 19th century Resurrection arguments were. Others are probabilistic. They also vary in how ambitious they are. Contrast, for example 6: Revelation and Miracles - the Kuzari Principle « Living up to The Truth « Ohr Somayach (which presents a strong form of the argument) with https://philosophyofjudaism.blogspot.com/2011/09/kuzari-principle.html (which presents a weaker form of the argument). Despite their differences, all of these arguments try to argue that Jewish national traditions about the event at Sinai have certain unique features that make it unlikely that they developed over time.

I have three questions:

1. Are these kinds of arguments even worthwhile against modern Old Testament scholarship, even in their weaker forms? It’s my understanding that the last two centuries of scholarship about the Old Testament’s historical reliability have not been as positive as historians’ judgments about the New Testament.
2. Would these arguments be worthwhile enough for Catholic apologists to adapt them to their own cases for Christianity? Despite their source in another religious community, they seek to prove an event that the Catholic Church also accepts.
3. However, would repurposing Kuzari arguments for Catholic use have the perverse effect of strengthening Orthodox Jewish apologetics against the Catholic Church? (Since they provide historical leverage for claims that the Old Testament can stand alone as revelation.)

 

[Kei]

I’d say so.

OT scholarship has I believe varying opinions, and some overarching ideas that really do not pan out despite their popularity, to my understanding.

I once heard an argument about it on YT by a Jewish presenter. He tried to say the old “Paul started Christianity” thing, but if a refutation to this ridiculous statement were well known to the Jews, then yes this could be very useful.

Obviously Sinai is very important.

 

[Spyridon]

Interesting OP, interesting articles. I’d never heard of this before. Thanks.

 

[MadeUpName2]

I once heard an argument about it on YT by a Jewish presenter. He tried to say the old “Paul started Christianity” thing, but if a refutation to this ridiculous statement were well known to the Jews, then yes this could be very useful.

The Kuzari argument, as I’ve seen it deployed against Christianity by (e.g.) Schochet, runs roughly as follows:

• Sinai Revelation definitely happened. (See Kuzari argument)
• The Torah/Pentateuch was given at Sinai exactly as it exists today, word for word.
• The Torah says that God will test Israel’s faith with miracles that support doctrines contradicting the Torah.
• New Testament contradicts the Torah.
• Therefore, EVEN IF the Resurrection happened, it was just God testing Israel.
• Furthermore, the Resurrection didn’t happen anyway, because the argument for it is much weaker than Sinai.

There are numerous problems with this, but I think the main issues emerge from the claims that (1) the Torah can be historically proved to have been delivered verbatim, (2) Torah is irreconcilable with the NT, and (3) the evidence for Sinai is stronger than the Resurrection. I think it also relies on an “oral Torah” tradition existing, which carries additional difficulties.

Still, it’s interesting that the main Orthodox Jewish line of attack I’ve seen against Christianity ultimately rests on historical premises, unlike, say, Calvinist presuppositional attacks on Catholicism that rely more on Scriptural interpretation.

EDIT: I’m guessing that the Youtube presenter you heard was Rabbi Kelemen, who gives an hour-long standardized lecture about the Kuzari argument. I think he uses a probabilistic version. Unlike the two guys I linked to, he’s not an analytic philosopher. Also, his description of non-Jewish religious beliefs is…not very well researched.

 

[Kei]

It was just someone who just really stressed that Sinai was like the beginning of the religion and compared it to others.

The article linked in the OP makes another odd idea, that Christians are trying to contradict the foundation of their religion when it is actually completely in line with it.

But anyway, do you know how one of these people who use this argument would answer the objection of ie Mohammed splitting the moon?

For Christian miracles it was just like the article just tried to minimalize it and say that they could have happened, but it’s just that they were false teachers or whatever.
Obviously us Christians don’t need that caveat.

 

[MadeUpName2]

I don’t know what would happen in a Muslim/Jewish debate, since I’m not Muslim or Jewish, and I’ve never seen a focused debate on that topic.

My guess would be that the Jewish side opens something like this:

1. Sinai happened and proves Judaism is true.
2. Improbable survival of the Jewish people through history proves that Judaism is true.
3. Judaism teaches that the Quran’s account of Jewish history is false.
4. Therefore, Islam is false.

Except that they probably wouldn’t say it that directly, since they’re not allowed to proselytize.

Muslims most likely counter with their standard apologetic approach against Christians, with a slight adaptation:

1. Old Testament contradicts several known historical facts, and therefore cannot be from God in its present form (cite secular Jewish Old Testament scholars)
2. Best explanation for the Old Testament’s present form isn’t divine revelation, but the Documentary Hypothesis (cite Richard Friedman, a Jewish Old Testament scholar)
3. Agree that the Jews received something from God on Sinai.
4. The Quran is miraculously beautiful and perfect (cite literary criticism and perhaps alleged mathematical miracles or argument from religious experience).
5. Therefore, best explanation for the combination of a corrupt Old Testament with the undisputed fact that the Jews probably received something on Sinai is that Islam is true. (The Jews received revelation on Sinai, but the text was corrupted.)

At that point, things could go in interesting directions. Both sides would probably attack the historical reliability of the other’s versions of the events in question. The Jewish side would probably drag out Umberto Cassuto’s attack on the Documentary Hypothesis, which appears to be a standard apologetic response. They’d probably reject the argument from Quranic perfection as subjective. (IIRC, that was Gottlieb’s approach.)

The Muslims would probably continue to hammer on textual issues, historical errors, and the Documentary Hypothesis, all of which would have ample citations from Jewish secular scholars. But they’d also have to defend the Quran’s accounts of ancient Jewish historical events, along with alleged errors in the Quran. That might get tricky, since the same secular Jewish scholars they cite might be cited against them on the Quran’s versions of events.

The Muslims would be more likely to bring up stuff like scriptural scientific and/or mathematical miracles, but I don’t think it would be a good idea. Especially because the only mathematical irregularity that was published in a peer-reviewed paper actually appeared in the Jewish scriptures. The Muslims might argue that the Old Testament preserves certain historical prophecies of Muhammad from the original (now lost) text that they claim existed, but that would lead into an interpretive argument about Hebrew that they would probably lose.

As for the splitting of the moon, it depends on whether it’s attested enough to survive historical scrutiny.

But again, that’s all just my own speculation from having seen some apologetic work from both sides against Christians.

 

[MadeUpName2]

(I’ll also throw in that, if up against those among the Orthodox Jews who believe that the Earth is only thousands of years old, the Muslims might point out that the Jewish timeline contradicts scientific evidence and weakens the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Which hurts their case in a debate under secular standards.)