Presence

I've always thought that the oft-cited proof of the authenticity of the Torah based on the principle that "You can't make this stuff up," was flawed. Now, finally, I've found someone else who agrees with me. R. Micha Berger posts his understanding of the "proof" as cited by R. Yehuda HaLevi in the Kuzari:

...the assumption is made that the claim is made out of the blue, in a single stroke. It doesn't account for gradual acceptance of a story. Say something starts out as a myth about a subset of the people, and it's known to be a bed-time story. The next generation it's "some say". Over several generations, it can become "official history" about everyone, with no one generation expressing the disbelief that is critical to this argument.

This argument points to a general problem rampant in Orthodoxy today, namely, an ignorance of, or refusal to accept, any historical evolution of Judaism or the Jewish community. This manifests itself in its most basic form as my son's parsha sheets that depict Avraham, Yitzchok and Ya'akov wearing long coats and black hats, peyos and tzitzis blowing in the wind, and in more pernicious forms as in this proof. Please note I'm not saying that this disproves anything, only that, as a proof, this leaves what to be desired.