An Eternal Nation

The Argument from Jewish Survival

The survival of the Jewish people over the millennia represents a historical anomaly. We have withstood fire and water, and although we remained a tiny minority in each of the societies in which we dwelled, we have clung on to our traditions and maintained our national identity in face of exile and persecution. We are one the most ancient nations on the planet, with our roots stretching back at least three thousand years, and the future for our people still seems bright. We have watched superpower after superpower come and go, yet we are still here. Not only that, we have seen a renaissance in the last century with the miraculous return to our homeland after two thousand years, and we are thriving like never before.

What is the story of the Jew? What is the secret of his immortality? This question was famously posed my Mark Twain in his 1899 essay, Concerning the Jew.  Many see here evidence for the uniqueness of the Jews as the chosen people, and a sign for a providential hand guiding them throughout the ages. Some point to the prophecies in Deut. 28-30, where the Torah predicts the dispersion, persecution, survival, and ultimate return of the Jewish people to Israel, seeing this as a supernatural occurrence which vindicates the divinity of the Torah. Is this convincing? Does this constitute clear evidence to the truth of Judaism?

Introductory Note: The Role of Priors

When considering the survival of the Jewish people, how one interprets this phenomenon largely depends on their prior beliefs. For an atheist, even highly improbable events, such as the persistence of an ancient nation through millennia of exile, persecution, and dispersion, may simply be seen as an anomaly—a statistical outlier that doesn’t necessarily demand a supernatural explanation. The universe is full of unexpected and improbable occurrences, and survival, while remarkable, can still be understood within natural historical and sociological frameworks.

For a believer, however, this very improbability strengthens their conviction. The survival of the Jewish people is seen as a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecies, such as those found in Deuteronomy 28-30, and a sign of divine providence. From this perspective, what an atheist sees as an anomaly, the believer sees as the hand of God, guiding history according to the Torah's ancient predictions.

To illustrate this point, imagine you are asleep in bed, and you awake to a sound from your basement which sounds exactly like a hippopotamus grunting. Assuming we have only two possibilities to explain the noise, either a hippo somehow made its way all the way from Africa to your basement and is having a party down there, or the bookshelf in your basement fell in a way which by extreme chance made the exact sound. Although the observation is better explained by the hippo hypothesis, since the prior of such an event occurring is a near impossibility, the better explanation would be a massive coincidence that your bookshelf happened to make the exact noise.

The same logic would apply if an Indian guru made a prediction which was extremely unlikely and still occurred. Since the hypothesis of him having supernatural powers is extremely unlikely, the possibility of chance is still more likely. The reason why we would differentiate between the guru’s prediction and that of the Torah, is because our priors regarding the Torah’s truth are (justifiably) higher, which allows it to outweigh the improbability of chance. However, for one who considers it unlikely (based on other arguments) that God exists, or that he can intervene in history, historical anomalies can justifiably be left at just improbable events.¹ (Keep in mind that improbable events are probable to happen some of the time.)

Therefore, even after evaluating the strength of the argument itself, whether or not it indicates the divinity of the document which predicted it heavily depends on those priors. With this in mind, I’ll explore both perspectives, recognizing that, ultimately, the interpretation of Jewish survival depends as much on our assumptions as on the facts themselves.²

The Prophecies

1. The Torah in several places states that the Jewish people are an eternal nation. See for example Genesis 17:7 -והקמתי את בריתי ביני ובינך ובין זרעך אחריך לדרתם לברית עולם להיות לך לאלהים ולזרעך אחריך, and Jeremiah 31:35-36 - כה אמר ה' נתן שמש לאור יומם חקות ירח וכוכבים לאור לילה וגו' אם ימושו החקים האלה מלפני נאם ה' גם זרע ישראל ישבתו מהיות גוי לפני כל הימים.

2. The Torah predicts that the Nation of Israel will be exiled and dispersed against the nations. See for example Leviticus 26:33 - ואתכם אזרה בגוים והריקותי אחריכם חרב והיתה ארצכם שממה ועריכם יהיו חרבה, and Deut. 28:64 -והפיצך ה' בכל העמים מקצה הארץ ועד קצה הארץ ועבדת שם אלהים אחרים אשר לא ידעת אתה ואבותיך עץ ואבן.

3. The Torah predicts that the Jews will remain small in number. See Deut. 4:27 - והפיץ ה' אתכם בעמים ונשארתם מתי מספר בגוים אשר ינהג ה' אתכם שמה.

4. The Torah predicts that the Jews will face severe persecution while in exile. See Lev. 26:28 - ואבדתם בגוים ואכלה אתכם ארץ איביכם, and Deut. 28:65 -ובגוים ההם לא תרגיע ולא יהיה מנוח לכף רגלך.

5. The Torah predicts that the Jews will have a great influence on the rest of the world. See Gen. 12:3 - ואברכה מברכיך ומקללך אאר ונברכו בך כל משפחות האדמה, and Isaiah 42:6 - אני ה' קראתיך בצדק ואחזק בידך ואצרך ואתנך לברית עם לאור גוים.

6. The Torah predicts that while the Jews are in exile the land of Israel will remain desolate. See Lev. 26:33-34 - והיתה ארצכם שממה ועריכם יהיו חרבה אז תרצה הארץ את שבתותיה כל ימי השמה ואתם בארץ איביכם, and Deut. 29:23 -גפרית ומלח שרפה כל ארצה לא תזרע ולא תצמיח ולא יעלה בה כל עשב כמהפכת סדם ועמורה אדמה וצבוים אשר הפך ה' באפו ובחמתו.

7. The Torah predicts that despite all the tribulations the Jewish people will endure, they will still preserve the Torah itself. See Deut. 31:21 - והיה כי תמצאן אתו רעות רבות וצרות וענתה השירה הזאת לפניו לעד כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו.

8. The Torah predicts a return of the Jewish people to Israel after the exile. See Deut. 33:4-5 - ושב ה' אלהיך את שבותך ורחמך ושב וקבצך מכל העמים אשר הפיצך ה' אלהיך שמה אם יהיה נדחך בקצה השמים משם יקבצך ה' אלהיך ומשם יקחך, and Deut. 30:5 -והביאך ה' אלהיך אל הארץ אשר ירשו אבתיך וירשתה והיטבך והרבך מאבתיך.

All eight of these prophecies were undeniably fulfilled. The Israelites/Jews were exiled not once, but on two separate occasions, once at the hands of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the second time at the hands of the Roman general Titus Flavius Vespasianus in 70 CE. The former lasted several decades, while the latter lasted for nearly two millennia. During both exiles we have undergone much persecution, so much so that a new word was created just to describe hatred towards the Jews; antisemitism. We have remained a constant minority in our host nations, constituting less than a percentile of the world population. Although there were various large communities in the diaspora, there is no nation that is more dispersed across continents than the Jews. Nevertheless, despite remaining a scattered and persecuted minority, the words כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו have shown to be true, and we have retained a distinct identity and held steadfast to our ancient traditions. The Torah has been preserved in a remarkably uniform fashion across disparate Jewish communities. In the end of both exiles, we have returned to our land, the first time under Darius the Great of Persia circa 516 BCE, and more recently the Jews have emigrated en masse from around the globe to the modern state of Israel over the course of several decades. (Although the temple hasn’t been rebuilt, what the verse describes as a return to the land has been fulfilled.)

Under naturalism, these events are nothing short of astonishing. All contemporary nations of the Israelite kingdom have ceased to exist or have lost their original identity, including powerful kingdoms such as the Hittites, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians. In the last two thousand years the majority of cultures assimilated into the more powerful cultures, such as Rome, Christendom, Islam, Britain, or developed new identities with little connection to their past, such as Turkey, Russia, China, and others. Superpower after superpower faded away, and smaller nations have succumbed to military forces or assimilation, yet the Jew remained. Countless men have predicted our demise, from Apion in the 1st century, to St. Augustine in the 5th century, Voltaire in the 18th century, and Karl Marx in the 19th century, and we have proven them all utterly wrong. There have been numerous attempts to eradicate the ‘Jewish problem’, including Haman³, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Hadrian, various Inquisitions, Bogdan Chmielnicki, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin, but we have withstood them all. We have lived in vastly more powerful cultures as a tiny minority, including the Hellenic empires, Rome, Christian Europe, Muslim Arabia and North Africa, the European Enlightenment, Yemen, the Ottoman Empire, Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, and even in modern totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany and Communist Eastern Europe, yet we haven’t caved in and disappeared amongst the broader population. How can someone 3,000 years ago have predicted the survival of such a nation in face of such extreme challenges? Is this not evidence that such Prophecies were divinely inspired? How can someone have foreseen the rejuvenation of the Jewish people and the rebuilding of Israel after 2,000 years of wandering? From the third century onward, few would have dared to make such an audacious prediction. Yet here we are.

Amidst all these trials and tribulations, the Jewish people have arguably impacted much of the globe far more than any other nation. The Holy Scriptures of that tiny religion in 1st century Judea have been adopted by the two largest world religions as their own, and Jews have always been disproportionately influential in world politics, finances, culture, and intellectual achievements wherever we have settled. Isn’t it astonishing that such an impact was foreseen in Genesis and Jeremiah?

The land of Israel has been barren for most of recent history. From the report of the Ramban in the 12th century and the report of the Mark Twain in the 19th century, and various other sources, Palestine seems to have been largely destitute and desolate, with large swaths of land completely barren. However, in the last century and a half since the first wave of Aliyah, the land itself has seen a phenomenal revitalization with the proliferation of agriculture throughout Palestine/Israel. Israel is also now an economic powerhouse, with major contributions to the world economy in technology, agriculture, and defense systems. This abrupt turnaround seems almost miraculous. Although there many major world powers invested in Palestine in the last thousand years, including the Mamluks, the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire, the land seemed to refuse to provide its bounty until the Jewish people returned to receive it.

Furthermore, it would seem highly counterintuitive for a human author of the Torah to guarantee all these contradictory events. If he wanted to claim that the Israelites would be an eternal nation, he would not predict that we would be exiled, persecuted, and remain a minority. All of these greatly reduce the likelihood of a nation’s survival. It would be more logical to write that the Jews would remain in their land, or at least enjoy large populations and prestige while in exile. And why would he predict that we will be a light unto the nations if he envisioned as such a minor entity?

Skeptical Points

Many skeptics have pointed to various holes or fallacies in this argument. The following are several of these points.

1. The fact that the Jewish people have made remarkable contributions to the rest of the world is simply an observation, but not an argument. There are countless other nations that have had a large impact such as the Greeks, the Romans, The British Empire, the German Enlightenment, the Mongols, the United States, and no one has ever argued that this shows divine favor. Even some cultures that are relatively minor have made disproportionate contributions, including the Tibetans, the Armenians and others. Strong influences are bound to originate somewhere, and the specific place they have are merely accidents of history.

2. Although the Jews have been persecuted often, there have always remained areas where they enjoyed peace and prosperity. For example, while the Jews in Western Europe faced Catholic oppression, the Jews in Sephardic countries or in Northern and Eastern Europe have thrived. During the Holocaust which obliterated much of Eastern European Jewry, America and Israel remained safe havens for other communities.

3. Many of these prophecies seem to be cherry picked from other prophecies which haven’t been fulfilled. Most prominently, there are many more prophecies which predict a glorious end of days for the Jews and for the world at large in these same parshios, and they haven’t materialized. Obviously, the believer will maintain that they will be fulfilled in the coming Messianic era, however this nevertheless negates his right to point to several that were fulfilled, as he is rendering the hypothesis unfalsifiable.

4. Some of these prophecies are open to several interpretations. For example, the prophecy of אור לעמים can simply be a mistranslation, as it wasn’t intended to mean ‘A light unto the nations’, rather ‘A light amongst the nations’, comparing the false religions of world which represent darkness to the light which is the Jewish tradition, similar to the phrase ‘A rose amongst thorns’ in the Songs of Solomon. Similarly, the prophecy that the land will be desolate can be interpreted to refer to the initial destruction which left the land in ruins. Additionally, even if these prophecies weren’t fulfilled they would be interpreted by believers allegorically or to be referring to something totally different (just as not every one of the curses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy were literally fulfilled).

5. Judaism was adopted by other religions due to the belief in monotheism, which represents an intellectual advancement from many forms of paganism, and was more appealing to later cultures. Being that the Jews were the only monotheistic religion in the ancient world (with the arguable exception of Zoroastrianism), it is only logical that they would adopt their narrative. The naturalization of the world and the focus on morality as well were more in line with the flow of the zeitgeist.

6. The fact of Jewish survival, if used in an argument, amounts to what is known as survivor bias. This occurs when one person or entity survives while the others perish, and he seeks explanations for why he in particular survived. However, being that of the original sample it is likely that at least one will survive, there is no need for an explanation as to why this one in particular did. It is rather likely that one culture from the ancient world would survive, and we shouldn’t question why it was Judaism more than other cultures.

There are various other similar points made, but although they may have some merit and can be incorporated into a more comprehensive understanding, on their own they fail to address the broader narrative at hand.

A Counter Perspective

Saadia Gaon famously wrote “The Jewish People are only a Nation through the Torah”. Every other nation is defined by geographic or political boundaries, while the Jews have historically possessed neither. What therefore defines them as a nation? It is the Torah we hold which is the common denominator between a Jew from Morocco and a Jew from Poland. (Obviously with the rise of secular Jews the definition may have shifted, but this has held true for the majority of our time in exile.) There is a famous folk saying, ‘More than the Jews have kept the Torah, the Torah has kept the Jews.’ What does this mean? How has the Torah preserved us?

When the first temple was destroyed, the expected result would be that the Jews would assimilate into larger Ancient Near East cultures and their religion would cease to exist as occurred with the majority of conquered nations at the time, and even occurred in the Northern Empire when the Ten Tribes were conquered by Assyria. This is not simply due to cultural pressures, rather it is due to an integral aspect of the ethno-religions of the time. Every ANE religion viewed their god as the most powerful god, and the gods of other nations, while they conceded that they existed, they deemed less powerful than their own gods. This is evident from the inscriptions from various empires at the time, including Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Moab and others. In every battle between powers, it was always understood as a battle between the god of one people against another, and whoever was the victor was considered to have possessed a superior god. Therefore, when a country was conquered by a foreign power, they often accepted the deity of the conquering power in place of their former gods.

In fact, most ANE religions were modeled around the concept of a national god. They tended to view themselves as the highest form of human, corresponding to their god’s superior role in the pantheon, and their land was considered sacred as the chosen land of the god. Many religious practices centered around the national and ethnic identity of the people practicing it, and the political leaders often were considered to be demigods or at least in close contact with the divine by virtue of their leadership role in the nation.

In light of this context, we can understand what was unique about the Israelites which allowed their religion to survive political defeat. The Torah is monotheistic, and as such a defeat by a foreign power cannot be considered a defeat of the Israelite deity, rather it was understood as a punishment for misdoings which caused them to fall out of divine favor. (Many scholars even believe that monotheism was a product of a theology developed in response to the destruction, which may have had its roots in earlier monolatry and the fact that the priesthood was distinct from the political leadership.) Instead of the destruction vindicating the Babylonian god Marduk, instead we have literature such as Isaiah as Lamentations, which advocate a completely different perspective. This also was the impetus for the rise of Return Theology, which advocated the view that if the Israelites were to strengthen their loyalty to the Israelite God they would return to Israel and rebuild his temple. (It was in no way guaranteed that this theology would survive long, but it aided the cause when Cyrus, who was an especially tolerant leader, conquered the Babylonian Empire and issued an edict proclaiming freedom of religion and allowing exiled nations to return to their homelands.)

In doing so, the Priests and Prophets of that generation unknowingly laid the groundwork for the second exile, which was an almost inevitable event in the ancient world that a nation would fall to a greater power. (After the first destruction the nation was largely exiled out of the land, in line with the practices of Nebuchadnezzar, while at the time of the second destruction this was no longer commonplace, and territories were often annexed into larger empires such as what the Greeks and the Romans were wont to do.) Judaism was no longer dependent on a homeland in spite of a being an ethno-national religion, and to the contrary, defeat was now able to be used to strengthen their religious commitment through understanding exile as a divine message to renew their commitment.

When Judea fell to the Roman Empire several centuries later, the Jews of the time built on this foundation through two methods. One was the rise of apocalyptic theology, which viewed the tension between the Romans and the Judeans as the ultimate battle which would culminate in the End of Days. (There were also many roots to this approach in early second temple writings, notably in Zachariah.) The second was the creation of Yeshivos, which began in Yavneh immediately after the destruction. They took the religion which was still somewhat connected to the land, and developed a comprehensive halachic and philosophical framework which was hardly connected to the original form of covenant theology which focused very much on the land and on political power. (This contributed to the emigration from Judea to Sassanian Persia aside from the Roman persecution in the 2^nd century.)

In Babylon, this Judaism was developed further into one which had two major components. First, it was a religion of the book, of scholarship and traditions, unlike virtually any other religion of the time. This allowed them to survive and even thrive within foreign countries although they had little power. Second, the apocalyptic theology was further cemented into a yearning for a Messiah who would supernaturally return them to their original political glory. However, the focus on the Torah itself which was occurring in the Yeshivos of Bavel removed the need for that to actually occur.

As time progressed and the Jewish community in Bavel declined, another major step took place which allowed the continuation of the Jewish people – the rise of the two other monotheistic religions; Christianity and Islam. Some of the contributing factors to their rise was the appeal of universalism which is made possible through ethical monotheism. The Jews were a major force in the Roman Empire – constituting 10% of its citizenry in the 1^st century, and many of them were highly connected and influential. The combination of this influence and Christianity radical appeal laid the groundwork for the new religion to take hold within the Empire. The turning point occurred when Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 4^th century, and when the Roman Empire split in 395 Christianity was dominant in both the Western and Eastern empires. This obviously had an influence on nearby Arabia, and in 622 Islam began as the daughter religion of Christianity.

The rise of these two rivaling religions had tremendous ramifications for the Jews. While both of these religions were forcefully imposing their religion on much of the world, the Jews occupied a unique position. They were not the enemy the same way the pagan was, but they still remained outsiders. This caused an uneasy coexistence between Judaism and their host religions where they tolerated them to an extent, while at the same time persecuted them and occasionally expelled them or massacred them. However, they provided valuable services to their host countries; they were permitted to engage in necessary economic activity which was prohibited by Christianity and Islam such as money-lending in Christian countries and tax-farming in Muslim countries. Additionally, they played in integral role in commerce and communication between these two worlds, and at times formed various alliances as per the dictum ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Additionally, many Jews gained prominence in Christian or Muslim countries, partially due to the scholarship Jews were known for which provided them with invaluable intellectual, financial and political skills.

In Christian countries, the Jews often faced persecution based on accusations of heresy or deicide, but this was in no way uniform across Christendom, and many countries accommodated the Jews and provided save havens for them. The dispersion across many countries aided in their survival, as the destruction of one community did not spell doom for the entire Jewish people, and Jews fleeing from one country had large Jewish communities to join.

Jew may have found a balance of coexistence which fluctuated from time to time, but they were still Jews and very recognizable as such. They were compelled to live within Jewish communities, either by law or by virtue of being second class citizens who could not engage in broader culture. This strengthened their focus on community, tradition, and Torah. A Jew could not integrate into broader society without joining the other side by converting. They developed their own communal systems and Rabbinic authority, which was defined by their borderless Jewish identity and Judaism. This also provided the framework for cross-pollination between distant Jewish communities, as they were ultimately dependent on Jewish traditions and culture as opposed to that of their host countries.

Throughout this time, two things remained the lifeblood of the Jewish people; the Torah and the Messianic yearning. The Torah provided the framework for their communities, with the Messianic yearning strengthened their national identity and pride although it was practically non-existent. This is how matters continued until the rise of Enlightenment. Now Jews no longer were compelled to hold on to their traditions to find their place in society, as the ghetto walls had fallen and the opportunities in broader society had widened greatly. This threatened the continuation of the Jewish people, and a new force was necessary to maintain their heritage. However, centuries of tradition had provided various tools of dealing with this challenge, some focused on Torah in renewed ways, while the other drew on the other resource that had kept them alive – the yearning for national rejuvenation in Zion. This hope that had kept them through the ages refused to burn out, and a new movement arose to work towards a return to their homeland – Zionism. They eventually succeeded in realizing this hope and establishing the modern State of Israel.

What emerges from this overview is a comprehensive naturalistic explanation for the fulfillment of many of the prophecies outlined above. The events of the 6^th century BCE forced Judaism to develop the method to remain an eternal nation. These methods were effectively self-fulfilling prophecies, for they exhorted the Jews to remain focused on their traditions and to yearn for the eventual return. The specific outcome of events allowed Jews to survive, while remaining a persecuted minority. It caused them to bring the Messiah with their own hands, and to ensure the survival of the Torah throughout. While in exile they refrained from developing an attachment to the lands they were in, and as such they often emigrated to new places, exacerbating their dispersion, and maintained the yearning to return to Israel. Their influence on the world around them allowed them to coexist with the nations around them, while still retaining dhimmi status and facing many tribulations. I believe this provides a satisfying naturalistic explanation for all the prophecies⁴.

One might still object that although the method which brought about the fulfillment may be attributed to natural factors, nevertheless it didn’t have to play out this way and the fact that it did remains miraculous. However, this amounts to survivor bias as described above, as every course of events would have led to a different outcome, and there is no reason that another sequence of events should have occurred over the one that did.

It is still left to address to address why a human author would have made these counterintuitive predictions, and whether the fact that they materialized as predicted can be attributed to mere coincidence. Being that this post itself is already as long as the golus, and I don’t know if any survivors made it until the end, I will save it for a postscript at a later date.

1. This needn’t be a bias against supernaturalism if the atheist can provide arguments for his assumption of naturalism.

2. I personally consider this to be the strongest argument for the divinity of the Torah, however I don’t feel it’s sufficient for the extraordinary claims it sets out to demonstrate (and to outweigh various counterarguments), and therefore it would be better marked up to simply a remarkable event combined with some of the natural factors outlined below.

3. Although this may not be historical.

4. Aside from the prophecy about the land remaining desolate which hasn’t been addressed. I will try to address this in the postscript.