I keep on having the same argument with RJM, and RJM keeps on missing the point. Here is how it goes:
RJM: If you truly understood ANE history, you would see that TMS is the only reasonable explanation for what happened.
XGH: If that's true, then why don't all, or at least many, ANE history experts convert to OJ? Yet they don't. In fact if anything, it's the other way round. Clearly, ANE experts don't find your arguments convincing.
RJM: Many people find my arguments convincing.
XGH: Only co-religionists do, and they are required to believe that. No one else finds these arguments convincing, because they are highly subjective and basically they are just not good arguments.
RJM: You are being circular, because if anyone finds my arguments convincing, they would by definition be OJ, and then you would discount them.
XGH: But nobody does find them convincing!
RJM: Circular!
XGH: Good grief!
RJM ENTIRELY misses the point, every time. I will try and explain it again to him one last time, and if he still doesn't get it, I give up. He is quite intelligent, so he should be able to get it if he tries hard.
RJM believes he has strong arguments for TMS. I have heard his arguments multiple times, straight from his mouth. They are all more sophisticated variants of the Kuzari proof, i.e. No way could such a Torah have ever been created by man, for various reasons to do with ANE history and similar.
The problem is, he doesn't ever have any hard and fast facts, all he has are subjective arguments.
For example, he says:
'No way would the Neviim have been able to convince idolatrous ancient Israelites to give up their idols if TMS wasn't true'.
And I respond:
'Sure they could!
And more to the point, they did! And the proof for this is that TMS is not true, yet the Neviim were still able to convince the ancient Israelites to give up their idols'.
This argument sounds almost like a joke, but this is actually how every single argument goes with RJM on this topic.
(He has different arguments when it comes to First Cause, but since he correctly admits that First Cause says nothing about God, that whole argument is absolutely irrelevant to me now.)
RJM says 'X happened, and no way could X have happened unless TMS was true', and I say 'Sure it could'. But there's no corroborating evidence, no way of verfying that X implies TMS, there's only RJM saying 'If you truly understood ANE history, then you would see that X could only possibly have happened if TMS was true.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF RJM'S TMS ARGUMENTS FOLLOWS THIS SAME PATTERN.
Now THIS is the point at which I bring up the academics. RJM argues that if you truly understand ANE history, you will see that the most reasonable explanation is that TMS is true.
Yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of all types of ANE experts in academia, and none of them hold that TMS is true! If RJM is correct, and if RJM's arguments are convincing, then surely many, if not all, of these ANE experts should all be converting to OJ!
Yet hardly any of these experts ever convert to OJ. How can this be? These people are experts in ANE, yet they do not find RJM's arguments in any way convincing. The only logical explanation is that these arguments are NOT in fact convincing to anyone, not even to ANE experts. Especially not to ANE experts. They are only convincing to RJM and his fellow co-religionists, and naive lost students being conned at Aish discovery programs.
And even worse, the 'traffic' is almost all in the other direction.
How many secular academics believe in SINGLE HUMAN authorship of the Torah in 1200 BCE? Not Divine Authorship, but Human Authorship in 1200 BCE.
How many? NOBODY.
But why not? This has nothing to do with God or religion, it's simply a single human author in 1200 BCE. Yet nobody believes that. The only people who believe in SINGLE authorship are also not co-oincidentally religious fundamentalists who HAVE to believe that because they are religiously required to hold that.
Yet there have been quite a few formerly OJ Bible experts who have been convinced the other way: on the textual evidence alone, they became convinced that the Torah had multiple human authors and was compiled late.
The bottom line is that all of RJM's arguments are highly subjective and almost nobody who is not already convinced is ever convinced by them, including experts on all the very subjects that RJMS claims prove his point.
And what does RJM respond to this? He just claims I'm being circular, that of course people who find him convincing are OJ, and people who don't are not.
The only possible defense that RJM has here is for him to argue that ANE history does reasonably show that TMS is true, but all the ANE academics are too biased to accept that. The trouble is, if RJM plays that hand, he instantly loses, because then I counter that of course TMS isn't true, and the only reason he thinks the arguments are convincing is because he's biased. He can't win that argument at all.
Like I said, entirely missing the point.
And the really funny thing is, RJM has admitted to me on numerous occasions that religion has an incredible problem, because when it comes to religion, everyone is inescapably biased and everything is entirely subjective, there are no hard facts. RJM said this to me personally.
So if that's the case, why should I believe anything that RJM (or anyone else) says on the topic of religion? Everyone is hopelessly biased and subjective, even RJM agrees. Obviously the entire field is a complete and utter waste of time and should just be ignored until some real evidence comes to light. And in the absence of any good, unbiased evidence, the best approach is to assume that all fantastical claims about gods writing books should be taken with a grain of salt.
Isn't this entirely poshut, from a rational standpoint? Of course it is.
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