Kuzari Principle

The Kuzari Principle or National Revelation is a line of philosophic reasoning derived from the medieval work Kuzari. This principle claims to logically prove the historicity of major events recorded in the Bible from the nature of the belief in them. More specifically, it is argued that one can prove from the oral testimony of the story itself that some three million Israelites personally were led out of Egypt in an Exodus, and witnessed God's revelation to them at Mount Sinai, thus establishing the proof of the events discussed in the Torah.
Major formulation
A modern statement of the Kuzari Principle is as follows: Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred. Therefore, if people believe that E occurred, it is only because it actually did.
The argument continues by claiming that events such as the revelation at Sinai fit the requirements of the Kuzari Principle. The Jewish people could only have accepted the story of Sinai and the exodus if it was true. If someone had come to the Jews at a later point and claimed these events had happened to their ancestors, they would have rejected the story and said they had never heard of such a thing. Kuzari proponents also claim that other mass beliefs, such as those of other religions, do not fit the requirements.
Many people propose a slightly expanded version of the Kuzari principle: A person cannot come to a nation and falsely claim all their ancestors experienced a national revelation of great significance to their daily lives. Since the Torah repeatedly mentions the exodus and revelation, and contains many commandments remembering them, it would have been very difficult for it to have been made up. To disprove the Kuzari Principle, one would have to find a nation that keeps many practices remembering an event that supposedly happened to all their ancestors, and show that event to be false.
Criticism
There are both logical and historical counter-arguments to the Kuzari Principle, primarily:
* There are numerous examples of falsified myths that people take for granted. For example, the traditions of Shia Islam, maintain that on the day Husain ben Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was killed, the stones of the Temple Mount were drenched in blood for the whole day. This event should have left some commentary from other sources, such as Christians living in Jerusalem at the time. In Christianity, the miracle of feeding the multitude, whereby Jesus fed over 5,000 people in one town and over 4,000 in another, creating food from 5 and 7 loaves of bread (respectively) is another such example. In summary, Kuzari proponents would be forced by symmetry to accept the public miracle claims of other religions, but they reject other miraculous stories.
* Joshua 10:13 contains a public miracle that says that the sun stood in the middle of the sky for the whole day. The whole world would have seen this, yet we see no evidence of this event in other ancient cultures or at least cultures that had a writing system and astronomical awareness. The Egyptians and Babylonians had writing systems, yet they left no trace of the event in their writings, so we are left with only one source for this miracle - the Bible. This casts doubt on the historical veracity of the lesser public miracles. To disprove the expanded version of the principle, one would have to explain how the Jews adopted all of their practices remembering the Exodus. Some examples: The commandments to "tell about the Exodus" to "tell it to your son" to "remember the day you left Egypt" etc. All the Jewish Holidays and the Sabbath recall the Exodus. Tefillin and mezuzot both contain passages recalling the Exodus.
* In regards to the Josiah argument, Kuzari Proponents argue that even then the Jews surely remembered the exodus, or they never could have been convinced of it. Idolatry had only been rampant in Israel for a few decades. This argument seems quite tenable as Hezekiah (Josiah's great-grandfather) was a righteous individual by Biblical accounts and led a nation-wide campaign for Torah study (see Tractate Sanhedrin 94b for further demonstration of the level of Torah knowledge at this time). Also, Manasseh (Josiah's grandfather) who led the charge for idolatry was considered to be a well-versed scholar (see Tractate Sanhedrin 102b for further discussion on this topic). Therefore, it seems quite unlikely that the people were completely ignorant of the Torah. From the very fact that Josiah asked for a prophet to explain the scroll, it seems likely that he knew that one should be consulted, further demonstration of basic Torah knowledge. Furthermore, from the text there is only indication of a lack of knowledge from the aristocracy (as they are the only ones discussed in the text about the Torah-scroll discovery), which may demonstrate that such ignorance was only existent amongst them. When one actually reads the text of II Chronicles (chapter 34), it is clear that Josiah destroyed idolatry and was seeking out the Lord even before "finding" this Torah scroll. Also, the text itself makes no mention of Josiah's unfamiliarity with its existence, but merely how he shuddered at the destruction that would be wrought on the people for not keeping its dictates. The Talmud states that he was shocked at the punishment of exile the nation would receive, not the existence of the scroll. Never is it stated that he, nor anyone, did not know what the scroll was. Furthermore, in Kuzari 4:23, Rabbi Judah Halevi states clearly that Manasseh followed the Torah, but merely worshiped idols. Although not universally held by all medieval commentators, the text in Kings and Chronicles does not demonstrate one way or the other regarding Manasseh's views on Torah. As for the lack of knowledge by the Babylonian exiles, the Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin states that only the less knowledgeable amongst the people returned. The greater bulk of Torah scholars (with the exception of Ezra and the like) remained behind in Babylonia. The discovery of the Zohar is not as relevant, since, while it was immediately accepted en masse without evidence, it always claimed to be a secret text not that relevant to the masses. It also does not claim any public miracle happened to the Jews' ancestors. The Torah was always read by all Jews and contains hundreds of commandments that they observed, many which recalled the exodus. Furthermore, the Joshiah argument isn't important, simply because the Samaritans who split from Judaism decades earler share our Torah text. Furthermore, the Psalms repeatedly refers to the Torah and the fact that it was accepted from earlier generations.
* In response to the example of the Zohar, no claims were ever made, even by strong supporters of the Zohar, that it was revealed publically and known to all Jews. In addition, it was never accepted by all Jews, from the time it was published until today. There was fierce opposition to it, in fact, which is recorded in Jewish historical texts. Which begs the question, why is there no record of similar opposition at the time of Ezra.

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