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

The bold italics are his arguments and my responses are underneath. Let's get right to it.3) It would be impossible to introduce the lie anywhere along the line in history because:There is an unbroken chain of Jews going back to the event itselfThe lie can be checked with family members. .. I hope I didn"t misrepresent your position. I wanted to summarize to help my own responses to your broader point. The summary was fine, but I would like to add to the third point that 'an individual was never solely responsible for the transmission of the event'. All biblical scholars (minus the devoutly orthodox I suppose) agree: Moses did not write Exodus. I think you agreed with me on this, unless I"m misunderstanding: ". .. there is no single person, or even a group of people to whom credit of writing/transmitting the Torah is given. "Here, I wasn't so much referring to the origin of the Torah as described in the Jewish tradition (essentially - authored by G-d, transcribed by Moses, then distributed to the twelve tribes - the very same people that witnessed the revelation at Sinai. ), but rather, the origins of the Torah according to modern interpretation. The intention behind the original statement was to convey that, once again, there is no known individual to whom credit for transmitting/writing the bible story is given. If such a person existed, there is no reason so significant a figure should be left out of Jewish tradition. This is evidenced by other religions as well, where credit is given to respective individuals, i. e. Paul the Apostle, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, etc. Is it really reasonable to expect that ancient people A) were able to know a story was new, B) had an emphasis on critical thinking and questioning of one"s parent's teachings, and C) had the resources available to them to fact check a claim? To be frank, yes. Completely reasonable. You mention several times the illiteracy of ancient people, which is simply untrue. Modern scholars believe that the Hebrew alphabet originated around 1200-1001 BCE. (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) In addition, it seems to be a common misconception that people of ancient times were uneducated and feeble minded individuals. 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. The cavemen don't go from learning to light a fire to postulating the theory of evolution in one day. Progress is attained as skills are learned and as new ideas are formed - based off the skills and ideas previously established. Despite not having the same information and technology available today, it is reasonable to assume that ancient people had similar levels of creativity and innovation as the people today. Take the ancient Egyptians for example. The pyramids they built required a considerable amount of thought and deliberation, as the building process was quite complicated. (. http://news.psu.edu...)I don"t have a choice but to appeal to your rationality. Consider: people today are *terrible* at fact checking easily disproven information. People eat up gossip, chain mail, political lies, urban myths and hoaxes. Two major problems I see with the above analogy are that a) it doesn't take into account the technology aspect involved in the dispensing of information (true or otherwise) in today's society, and b) makes a very broad use of the term 'easily disproven information'. In regards to A, 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 via a simple google search. In the ancient times, stories and ideas were told and exchanged via word of mouth, a much more reliable source of information. In regards to B, the examples that Con gives as 'easily disproven information' are not, in fact, easily disproven. All are cases of impersonal information, which is a lot more difficult to verify than personal information. As an example, say Celebrity A was rumored to be dating Celebrity B. The veracity of such a rumor could only be speculated by the public. However, Celebrity B would obviously have a more definite idea as to the veracity of the claim. Even a confidant of either celebrity could be expected to know that information. Judaism's claim falls into the category of personal information as it is expressly about one's ancestry, thus, easier to verify. No credulous person would believe that such a document could actually be produced with any level of historical accuracy. The point of the document, I believe, was not to provide a historically accurate chain, rather to provide the reader with an uninterrupted chain. The difference being that one would provide conclusive evidence, and the other, supportive evidence, respectively. The significance of the unbroken chain is to show that there is no gap in Jewish history and no one person responsible for the transmission of the Torah after the revelation at Sinai. However, I agree that it is not a definitive proof by any means. The Jewish claim of mass revelation is not unique. This is my opponent's strongest argument against my position. Should it be proven to be true, it would demonstrate that the argument for Judaism being the correct religion is an argument based on special-pleading. At this time, I do not have enough information to respond to this section properly. I am currently in the process of researching the religions Con has listed to see if there is a tradition of mass transmission or if there was ever a point in history where an individual was responsible for transmission. If I cannot find a sufficient answer by the next round, I will concede the debate to Con. In summary, I contend that, precisely like the other religions that came out of cultures that had oral traditions, the jews have no true revelation narrative in the sense you describe and compare. Their revelation occurred over generations as the stories grew and changed during retelling, consistent with how other fables, legends and religions have. A significant difference between the transmission of legends and the transmission of the Torah is the context in which it was transmitted. The revelation narrative has two distinct properties. One, being that the events described were, according to the narrative itself, witnessed by a nation consisting of many people. Two, the narrative also claims that the people present endeavored to pass along this information as a chain for future generations. (Vedibarta bam). The second aspect is not, as far as I am familiar with, an aspect inherent in the transmission of other legends and fables. I will be concluding here for now. If there are any arguments that have not yet been addressed, I would genuinely appreciate it if Con would point them out as it was not my intention to skip them over.