What's your proof?

This is how I understand R’ Keleman’s proof based on national revelation; I will write ‘A’ for every “proof” to our having received the Torah from G-d at Sinai, and ‘Q’ for every “disproof”:

A: 3 million people stood at Sinai and witnessed G-d give the Torah to Moshe.

Q: Maybe they lied.

A: The likelihood that 3 million people could have pulled off a lie of that magnitude, and that none of those 3 million would reveal the secret, is ridiculously small and pretty much unfathomable. No other religion has even made such a claim because a claim like that could only stand if it were actually true.

Q: Who says there were actually 3 million ppl? Maybe somebody made up this story at some point in history?

A: In what form could this lie have been presented such that the facts on the ground (i.e. we Jews believe our ancestors received the Torah from G-d) would match the story we have all been brought up to believe? Let’s break it down into a past, present, or future lie, i.e. the person or people (let’s call him Bob) who made this lie up came over to a group of people (the would-be Jews), handed them the Torah (written by Bob), and either convinced them that they or their descendants would eventually receive this Torah from G-d (future), that they themselves had received this Torah from G-d (present), or that their ancestors of the past had received this Torah from G-d (past) and Bob is returning it to them. Future is impossible, because the message that would be passed on to future generations is that the Torah has yet to be given (or at least verified by G-d). Present lie is hard, because you must convince a large group of people that they saw something which they did not. Past is the only real possible lie, where you are just returning the long-lost religion of their ancestors back to them, but in order for it to work, there should be a large gap in the history books from the time the Torah was ‘given’ to the time it was ‘regiven’ by Bob. Also, how come there is no record of this ever important Bob in the history books?

Q: Let’s focus on past lie: There are several figures in Tanach who could have filled the role of “Bob”; for example Ezra HASOFER. (Like any good yeshiva bochur, I know pretty much nothing about Nach, so I don’t know how easy or difficult it is to say Ezra is our Bob). Also, isn’t there some thing about there being like 160 years missing between the batei mikdashos? Anybody else heard of such a thing? If so, that could be our significant time gap which would allow past lie to take shape.

A: What about people today who have a historical lineage (either father-son or rebbe-talmud) back to Sinai? Doesn’t that negate there being a gap?

Q: Remember, Bob is one smart individual, and because this is past lie, he didn’t have to actually go to a group of 3 million people. Imagine he came up to a village of 100 – 1000 people and had them gather around. He tells them he is a prophet and their 3 million ancestors received the Torah (and they lost it due to lack of faith, natural disaster, etc.). He is convincing, but they want to know their lineage back to the Torah’s giving – was it great-grandpa, great-great, 5 greats, 8 greats? So he asks them for their lineage as far back as they know, and then makes up the rest from there. And why question Bob? After all, he is a prophet. And this group grew quickly. A group of 100 people for which the average family size is 4 kids and the average generation is 25 years will grow to more than 6 million within 400 years. And now the entire nation will believe that their 3 million ancestors received the Torah from G-d, and some will even have a lineage back to its giving.

A: (The “Bomb”) Okay, so maybe the claim of national revelation in and of itself isn’t so strong. But then why is it unique to the Jews? If it’s so easy to reproduce, why doesn’t every Tom, Dick, and Harry start a religion based on national revelation? There have been thousands of religions and cults formed throughout history, and as far as we know only one is founded on national revelation. It seems to be that national revelation is very unlikely to have been caused by a natural phenomenon. One of the fundamental principles of science is that things that are natural tend to reoccur, reappear, have cycles, etc. and in terms of history, well, history repeats itself. So if it is very unlikely that the national revelation story occurred naturally, that makes it much more LIKELY that occurred supernaturally.

Q: (This is my own) I can’t say I ever found his “bomb” so compelling, but along his line of reasoning, you might as well just say the fact that the world’s technology and communication is more advanced than it ever has been is “supernatural”, because that is the real reason no such claim has been reproduced. It just wouldn’t have a place to get off the ground under the conditions of today, nor probably those of the past couple centuries. Any claim like that would be too easily verified or disproved from countless sources. And once you’ve eliminated the possibility of national revelation reocurring in the future or having occurred any time recently, how many religions do you really have left to choose from (that we know the origin of and are more than let’s say 250 years old) and say, “Oh wow, Judaism must be really special because it’s the ONLY one with that kind of claim”? 10? 20? Idk, to me a 1/20 chance doesn’t really seem “proof-worthy”.

Let me know if anything I’ve said makes any sense at all.