Question:
Hello, I had a few questions I wanted to know if you can help me with.
1) It has long bothered me why there is no corroborating historical account of Maimad Har Sinai in other cultures. It is apparent from Rashi that other nations knew God gave us the Torah at that time. As we are told, when everyone else was afraid of the Jews because they had just gotten the Torah, Amalek came in and cooled the pot by being the first to attack. So obviously we maintain that others knew. If so, how come none of this, no legend even of this sort exists apart from our own mesorah?
2) Similarly, our mesorah, according to the Kuzari and the way Rabbi Dovid Gotlieb explains it, is based on the mass revelation at Sinai. And that such great events are not possible to be faked or forgotten. However, if we apply that same logic to the day the sun stood still for Yehoshua, which was a wordwide phenomena, how come we do not find a record of that event in any other culture as well?
Answer:
- Before actually addressing your question, it is fundamental to know that the Jews do not base their beliefs on facts taken from other nations or societies. We base our belief in matan torah from the tradition that has been handed down from father to son, and still is done by Jews in every continent and corner of the world. Coupled with the fact that it is clearly recorded in the torah, and given to all the Jews to read, which contained all the facts that stated the experiences that they went thru. Had the Jews reading the words written in the torah not believed that it actually happened to them, they would have protested it, not give it over to their children so devotedly. Had they not believed it they wouldn’t have sacrificed their lives through the ages for their belief.There are plenty of artifacts to the Jews being in Eqypt, the ten plagues, and their wandering in the desert. For more detail read Biblical Archeology (4 vol.) by Rabbi Zamir Cohen. He brings plenty of archeological finds supporting what it says in the torah. Additionally, which society are you referring to that you want to see that they wrote about matan torah? Do these societies write about anything? We know very little about these societies, and largely we know about them from their being mentioned in the Tanach. So how can we expect that they should write something about a different society then themselves!? see https://www.hidabroot.com/article/193219/Archaeology-Keeps-on-Reinforcing-the-Torah-Narrative and https://www.hidabroot.com/article/176142/Archaeology-Salutes-the-Torah
2. Regarding testaments of other nations regarding Yehoshua holding up the sun. I did once see something about this regarding one of the Far East nations, however right now I don’t recall what it saw. You might find this spoken about in the above mentions books.
Best Wishes
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