The Kuzari Principle

Probably the most famous argument used to "prove" Judaism is the Kuzari Principle. I will briefly summarize it:

1) Any event that would be very difficult to establish as fact without its actual occurrence is, in most likelihood, true.
2) The giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai is such an event, as there were several million people present.
3) Therefore, the Torah is given by God, as witnessed by these millions of people.
4) Therefore, Judaism is true.

I won't get involved here in how we would know that the Torah Sheb'al Peh is true, because that is a separate issue. I will confine myself to the argument above.

The issue is with Premise (2). How do we know that there were several million people there? From the Torah itself. Isn't this circular reasoning?

Those who support the argument respond as follows: if someone tried to introduce the Torah at a later point, everyone would know it was false. They would all say, "why have I never heard of such a momentous event before from my parents? They would have told me of such a fantastic story if it had really occurred. Therefore, you are a charlatan."

The problem with this is that it (a) assumes that traditions maintain the same form when repeated from generation to generation, (b) that anyone introducing the Torah would be starting a new religion from scratch, and (c) that the average person was well-versed in the specifics of the religion, not just some rituals.

In reality, it is quite clear that traditions do change from generation to generation. This can even be tracked through literature of various movements, such as the early Church or Kabbalah. So, the assumption that traditions are transmitted untouched is fallacious.

I will attempt to construct a possible pathway for the tradition coming down as is, without any revelation actually occurring:
Generation 1: Flees from Egypt. Forms a legal code in the desert. Sees God's involvement in both, just like Sennacherib sees his god Ashur's hand in his military victories. Also could see law as divinely inspired the same way Jews nowadays consider their Rabbis to be divinely inspired, or Catholics see the Pope as divinely inspired.
Generation 2: "God took as out of Egypt, and gave us the law, through Moses." This is not such a big leap from the previous generation.
Generation 3: "God took us out mightily from Egypt, and gave us the law through revelation through Moses."
Generation 4: "God smote the Egyptians as he took us out, and revealed himself at Sinai to the whole people as he gave the law to Moses.

Look how quickly the tradition can plausibly change. Does anyone note the similarities between this and the process of changing the story in George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is based on the historical Soviet Revolution? (Note: this is not to say that it actually happened this way, just that it is possible. It also may have taken more time than this for these opinions to have developed.)

There may also have been other factors involved. For example, the story could have been poetically embellished, and then at some later point, it was taken to be a true story.

The Torah could also have been forced upon the Jews by the point of the sword by a zealously religious king, who was listening to the opinions of the priests. This can possibly be seen in the time of Chizkiyahu, but even more so in the time of Yoshiahu.

Or it could be a combination of all of these, and possibly other ideas I haven't thought of, all of which have historical precedent.

People also sometimes try to claim that this argument for Judaism is special, not because it proves that Judaism is right, but because Judaism is unique in claiming the existence of such a widespread miracle. This is not true, as I can give many examples of historical claims that happened to wide numbers of people, were accepted by wide numbers of people as true, yet I'm sure the average reader will allow to be false:
1) Epic of Gilgamesh - Utnapishtim is saved by one of the gods after the rest of the gods decide to destroy the world. The entirety of mankind witnessed this, no? If you wish to say that the flood is true, but it was distorted by the pagans, then why not say that the Exodus is true, but distorted by the Jews, who added miracles to a natural story? Is it merely because it would be difficult to get the stories to coincide with so many people? But why not just ask Utnapishtim/Noach, who was still alive for hundreds of years thereafter, to tell his version fo the story?
2) The Aeneid - the gods reveal themselves at several points to all of the Trojans, who are the ancestors of the Romans.
3) Maccabees 3 - Angels reveal themselves to the entire Jewish community of Alexandria and save them. This story was accepted as historical by many Jewish and Christian groups, yet it is not by Orthodox Jews.
4) The Splitting of the Moon - a miracle witnessed by many Muslims which confirmed the truth of the prophecy of Muhammad. If one wishes to attempt to falsify this by saying that others in locations far away from Arabia did not see this, but rather saw the moon remain whole, this does not solve the problem. Both led to entire people believing in a miracle that confirms the proof of their religion, yet it is possible that neither is true.
5) The Miracle of the Sun - a miracle that occurred in Portugal for tens of thousands of Catholics. See Wikipedia.
6) The Soviet Revolution - after the Revolution, the Soviets completely rewrote their history to grant themselves a greater role in overthrowing the Tsar. They succeeded despite the involvement of millions of the populace in the process who should have known that their claims were not true.

I'm sure I'm missing some other examples.

There is also the issue that many of the numbers in Tanach are likely inflated, but I won't get into that right now.

In any case, I don't think the Kuzari Principle should be granted any value, for the reasons listed above.