Over on the social network, someone identified the following three arguments as top proofs used by kiruv experts to prove the truth of the Torah. My responses provided below.
a) Shemitah - How could human beings possibly give themselves assurance that they'd have enough food to last with one year being unable to use the land? They had to have had a divine promise to even think of initiating such a thing.
Well, there are two problems here... (1) we don't know for sure that anyone actually kept shmita during bayis rishon or sheni and (2) other ancient cultures seem to have had similar fallow years (at least on paper, we don't know to what extenet those were kept either) But it seems to be represented in Ugaritic texts as a four year cycle and in Assyrian texts as a 7 year cycle. So "how could Assyrian and Ugaritic human beings possibly give themselves assurance that they'd have enough food to last with one year being unable to use the land? They had to have had a divine promise to even think of initiating such a thing." Right?
b ) Aliyah LeRegel - How could a nation mandate days for everyone, presumably including guards, to leave their usual posts for such occasions. It would be prime time for their enemies to attack! The only thing that can truly offer assurances of protection during that period is Hashem.
Again, who says guards left their posts? You're assuming something as true for which no evidence has been shown. Besides which, look at Kings! The Northern Kingdom as a whole gave up the pilgrimage festivals a good 400 or so years before the destruction; the Southern Kingdom was led, usually, by idolatry-loving Kings who had no use for God or his holidays; and the people, for the most part, were sinners who ignored God, and his festivals. We're even told that from Solomon to Josiah Passover was pretty much ignored. Given this description, I rather doubt that any borders were left unprotected.
And as for the second temple period... well, unfortunately, the Second Temple Kings were largely corrupt, and largely Hellenized. Many had Greek names, tolerated High Priests who weren't, in fact, priests, and demonstrated an indifference to God that was protested by the people and decried by the Rabbis. Do these sound like men who would trust a divine promise and abandon their borders?
ALSO Ancient campaigns were launched in the late Spring, when the weather was good, and when food was easier to find. An ancient army marching in winter would quickly starve, or freeze. Therefore, almost all ancient campaigns began after Passover, and by the end of the summer, ancient armies were almost always settling in for the winter. Based on this, it is HIGHLY unlikely that any ancient country -divine promise or not - was attacked at Passover or Sukkot.
c) Kashrus - The four animals listed in the Torah as having split hooves that don't chew their cud (I might be mixing it up) are the only four species ever discovered for that to be the case with. It's one thing to argue that the Biblical authors only knew the animals in their neck of the woods, but how could they have known for the whole world?
Um they didn't.
1) A hippo and peccary have the same foot structure as a pig, and like a pig, do not chew cud.
2) The llama and alpaca chew their cud and have no split hooves (well, they do, but the torah doesn't consider the camals split hoof to be a "real" split hoof)
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