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How do we know that Judaism is correct when there are many other religions?

  

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Rabbi Shlomo Chein: Welcome. I'll be with you in a moment...what's on your mind?

Sruli: How do we know Hashem is the only true G-d when there are thousands of cultures that had their own gods they believed in and when some Torah stories are similar to other cultures stories

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: so what exactly is your question - how do we know our story is true, or how do we know their story is not, or if we have similar stories what is different about ours?

Sruli: How do we know ours is true when there are so many others.

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: well I will tell you two basic differences. 1) Ours has withstood the test of time and space. There is no other religion that has withstood such a long time in so many different places and is still the same today - truth is not subject to a time or a place - and as such Judaims proves to be true

Sruli: What about hinduism?

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: it is not proven to have been around so long - there in not nearly as much writings about ancient hinduism as about ancient Judaism. Secondly it didn't stand the test of space - until very very recently it was only in a few select places of the world

Sruli: Until golus [Ed. note: exile] we were in in the middle east.

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: I still didn't finish my second point :-)

Sruli: ok

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: but to answer your question - a) we were all over the middle east, in almost every inhabited country of the time. b) golus is for close to two thousand years already - that is a long time for a trial period

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: but let me finish my original thought first

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: 2) Judaism is the only religion that didn't start with a single individual who claimed he had a revelation then attracted a following. In Judaism all the Jewish people - some three million - witnessed the beginning of the religon at the revelation of sinai1

Sruli: Wasn't Avraham the first Jew?

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: Avraham was the first Jew in the FAMILY or PEOPLE of Jews. But at the time they were only a people who had a belief. The Religion began with the giving of the Torah at SInai

Sruli: How do we really know Sinai happened is there archaeology that supports it?

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: no there isn't. The biggest proof that Sinai happened is the fact that the story has been told exactly the same to millions of people - i will give you agreat article to read about that - hold on let me find it

Rabbi Shlomo Chein: the article can be found be clicking the following link http://www.askmoses.com/qa_detail.html?h=416&o=399

All names, places, and identifying information have been changed or deleted in order to protect the privacy of the questioners. In order to preserve authenticity, the chat sessions have been posted with a minimum of editing. Please excuse typographical errors, missing punctuation, and/or grammatical mistakes which naturally occur in the course of informal chat sessions.

Footnotes

  • 1. See for example Exodus 19:9,11 20:15,19

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COMMENTS

3 million

Posted by: Benyamin Finn on Nov 13, 2006

I know the census was only for a part of the Jews but the census gives us 600,000. It would be reasonable to assume well over a million perhaps up to 2 million but I cannot see 3 million. Does Jewish belief include 3 million or was this just an example?

Editor's Comment

Three million is a rough estimation, taking into account the 600,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in addition to the other age groups + women and children, (with an average age span of +/- 120 years).

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