The only possible origin for the revelation story of Moses is from the event itself

Another good reply....there is no known individual to whom credit for transmitting/writing the bible story is given.I am perfectly willing to concede that this is the case. It is, afterall, part of my contention as well in calling it a cultural story. Further I posted those wikipedia articles that further back up my point that Exodus was not the work of one man, or a group of men, at a single point in time.You mention several times the illiteracy of ancient people, which is simply untrue. It was not my intent to imply that all people were illiterate, which clearly the invention of the Hebrew alphabet is evidence against. It was my intent to express that most people were. And further, even if they weren't, there were no libraries and books were EXTREMELY expensive until the invention of the printing press such that only the richest people could afford them. This is why ancient books are filled with lavish illustrations and addornments. They were works of art for the rich.Regardless of all that, according to your list, Moses was born before the invention of Hebrew writing. It's rather indisputable that the story had to go through a substantial period of time until someone wrote it.Also, by citing the Hebrew alphabet invention date of, at the earliest, 1200 and the unbroken chain list which puts Moses at 1272 (this is probably death since Sinai is at 1312), you basically proved to yourself that Moses could not have written the Torah. But again, maybe you already accept that, it's hard to tell.Firstly, keep in mind that the progress we have made today in various areas, be it technology, medicine, philosophy, science, etc. is only possible because of the basis that has been built up over previous centuries by other people....Your point is well met--we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, most obviously and notably in the world of science. However, our modern conceptions of all of those things you just listed are mostly products of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment period (http://en.wikipedia.org...). The former began sometime around the 1500s. Consider as an example, the heliocentric theory for the solar system wasn't developed until ~1520 by Copernicus. Getting even more rudimentary:"The Flat Earth model is an archaic belief that the Earth's shape is a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period [323 BC], India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century." (http://en.wikipedia.org...)So yes, we stand on the shoulders of giants, but the peasants of the Middle East during the pre-history times that we are talking about weren't even ants yet. Further, even if writing was established (which it wasn't), you must further contend that the population was generally literate and that it wasn't reserved for the most wealthy, who could actually afford an education and books (which it was). Further, even if they were literate you have to believe that they had access to information (libraries, schools, historians, etc) which they didn't.Where's the "secondly?" Anyway, your counter that the populace at this time was educated, literate, critical thinkers with access to information is left unestablished....much of the problem with fact checking today involves the over-abundance of information - once again, true or not - available to anyone, anywhere. For any given idea, you can find a wide variety of conflicting opinions...What you've done here is focused merely on the fringe. Rightly or wrongly, I contend it is plain to see (especially in the realms of science: chemisty, biology, mathematics, physics, etc) that most of what we collectively "know" is not debated. Consider the body of knowledge in a particular subject to be an outward-expanding circle. The outside of the circle is all hairy and tattered, "fringed" you might say. Anyway, yes, some stuff is debated, but all of that is built, as you said, on a foundation of knowledge that must be wholly taken for granted to even discuss the outer fringe. Oh, and the area of the center bit is so much larger than the fringe was my point.So while we're fighting about what type of boulder to place, at the end of the day, it's being placed on a mountain.Further, some things we know are not subject to opinions at all. But I digress.In the ancient times, stories and ideas were told and exchanged via word of mouth, a much more reliable source of information. Do you have any sort of citation or evidence for this? I cannot see how telling a story over and over again through centuries could possibly be considered "more reliable". There's many examples where this is simply not true. And of course, if it were, the Sioux and all other aboriginal tribes around the globe would have unadultered histories of their people. But they don't. They have legends and fairy tales that contain wildly fantastical claims about their history and their interractions with various gods. Judaism was founded by a tribe effectively identical to those still following their oral traditions today in South America, Africa, North America and the Philippines.Judaism's claim falls into the category of personal information as it is expressly about one's ancestry, thus, easier to verify.This is patently false, unless you consider "verification" totally different than any other (credulous) person. Even from today's perspective, assuming the Sinai event happened, there is no way for you to prove direct lineage to a "founding member." Even the Halakhic perspective allows for conversions. And I don't take the orthodox rules as lending much credibility to the claim as my own family is an example of how even the most Orthodox jews can not be descended from other Orthodox jews. Real quick, my aunt was born into a relatively liberal Jewish family, a far cry away from orthodox. My aunt, however decided to persue orthodoxy on her own with the help of a rabbi and I now have cousins in Israel studying Torah I have never met, and I bet they would claim Orthodox descendence even though it doesn't even go back two generations.Anyway, Orthodox descendency is not enough proof to establish an ancestral link, even if their laws didn't allow for conversions, which it does.The point of the document, I believe, was not to provide a historically accurate chain, rather to provide the reader with anuninterrupted chain. Well I showed that it was in fact historically innaccurate and interrupted. That is, it cannot be used for evidence at all about there having not been a single person responsible for the line of transmission as there are plenty of gaps in the "unbroken chain." But anyway, how can you establish a chain is uninterrupted without first being historically accurate? Seems I could just make up any old chain linking me to the Aztecs and claim I'm descended from Tecuciztecatl (from the Aztec's creation myth, which is also untrue).If I cannot find a sufficient answer by the next round, I will concede the debate to Con.Personal note: It might be too late, but really consider why each part of the structure you use to judge is relevant and necessary. The Kuzari was constructed to establish Judaism's uniqueness by way of a framework that was specifically designed ahead of time to singly apply to Judaism's revelation narrative. These examples I gave are merely to show that the Kuzari can apply to other religions so you must contend those to be true as well, but the Kuzari is arbitrary and there is no justification for why its construct is fundamentally valid or is sufficient evidence to believe the claim alone. Working from a position of knowing all the answers and trying to find evidence to support your position is totally different than starting from a position of indifferent ignorance and following to the clues wherever they may lead. But I'm sure you know this, I'm just rambling.One, being that the events described were, according to the narrative itself, witnessed by a nation consisting of many people. There's many legends that would have been witnessed by thousands, millions were they true. Consider the legend/myth of the seige of Troy: http://en.wikipedia.org...; (Read at least the summary and note the mythological claims that developed around a small [possibly] historic core--sound familiar?) But really, my point is that the story about a number of witnesses of some event cannot be used as evidence for the story itself. It's wholly irrelevant unless you start from a position of historical accuracy of Exodus, which is totally unestablished.Two, the narrative also claims that the people present endeavored to pass along this information as a chain for future generations. [This is not] an aspect inherent in the transmission of other legends and fables. Even if this specific part of the story is unique, the result of it is not. So, the source of 'it's important to pass this down' for Jews includes "God said so" on top of the pile shared with all other cultures: significant events in their lives, stories and lessons that they hold sacred, moral lessons, civil lessons, national origin, entertainment.... These are all reasons why societies might pass down stories, as evidenced by the fact that, dare I say, all oral societies did throughout history including those that still lack writing today. My point: the fact that the Jews have a commandment built into the story would only be signficant if it could be demonstrated to have been of signficance. As an exercise, consider that God did not say that part. Do you believe that those people would have simply been like "Oh, I guess we don't need to pass this down (and encourage our children to do so) because God didn't tell us to." Obviously not so this is wholly irrelevant.