Have you seriously considered that you might be wrong?

Modified from a comment which may or may not be deleted at Hirhurim:

It's a dishonest waste of time to argue against points you've never seriously considered might be true. How much time have you honestly spent wondering if Orthodox Judaism is false? Before you argue that the Exodus could have happened, did you really consider the possibility that it didn't? That it's a tall tale at best? Or did you immediately start looking for reasons you could keep on believing what you have so much invested in believing?

I dare any Orthodox Jew to spend 5 minutes imagining that the Exodus never happened, or that much of the chumash wasn't written until Ezra's time. Start with that thought and see how it affects all of your other beliefs. If the Exodus never happened, what does that say about the foundation of ancient Israel? If the chumash was put together around 400 BCE, what does that say about its divinity? Don't let yourself turn away from these thoughts for at least 5 minutes.

Reading some of what passes for arguments for Orthodox Judaism makes me think that many of you haven't considered the possibility that you could be wrong. If you're too scared to do that, you might as well give up the charade that you're engaging with the other side.

Quote of the Day: Archaeology and the Bible

In an article about the difference between Indiana Jones and real archaeologists:

In my own work in Israel, I've traced the early archaeologists' attempts to discover relics that would provide proof of the historical reliability of the Scriptures -- not too different from Indy's search for the biblical Ark of the Covenant. But in the last generation, archaeological teams at sites throughout the Middle East -- working to analyze everything from ancient plant remains to distributions of animal bones to ancient metallurgy and environmental data gathered from satellite imagery -- have begun to understand the social and cultural background to the rise of the biblical tradition. In the process, they've revealed that many of the taken-for-granteds of biblical history, such as the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua and even the vast kingdom of David and Solomon, were mostly literary tall tales and exaggerations of the historical reality.

The article was written by Neil Asher Silberman, author of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts.

What Do Orthodox People Really Believe?

XGH has claimed that several rabbis have admitted to him in private beliefs that they would never own up to in public. I wonder, if that's true, how many other rabbis are the same way? And how many of the rank-and-file Orthodox are as well?

There are several claims which are (in my opinion) transparently false but Orthodox Judaism depends on. For example:

1. 600,000 Jews literally walked out of Egypt at one time, plus "a mixed multitude" who went with them, along with flocks and herds and "very much" cattle.
2. There was a global flood that killed all living things except those which lived peacefully together on a man-made ark for forty days and forty nights.
3. The five books of Moses were written primarily by Moses, plus or minus a few letters here and there and maybe the last eight sentences.

I know that a lot of Orthodox Jews simply assume that these claims are true. I'm sure that some others are convinced by apologetics that they are true. What of the rest, though? Are we to believe that your average, relatively intellectual Modern Orthodox Jew believes these things? Or do they disbelieve, but keep quiet?

I don't really want to call anyone out, but do people like Chana and Ezzie believe that those things are true? Or do they just not think about them? Or do they accept the apologetics without thinking about those? Or are they literally in psychological denial? What about the rabbis? Is it all a big lie to them, albeit with good intentions, like telling children that the ghost of Elijah drinks from the cup at the seder or that the tooth fairy gives you money for teeth?

I'd really love to know. It's a shame there's no way to find out, short of kidnapping a bunch of rabbis and other Orthodox Jews and submitting them to a carefully-constructed polygraph test.