Mass Revelation

This argument was actually the last holdout for me on my journey towards atheism. On its surface it appears rock solid, but with a broader understanding of history it is clearly bogus. I am bothered how this argument continues to make its rounds in Orthodox circles and it is the duty of truthful Jews to shut it down. 

Claim

The written/oral Torah relays the claim that the entire people of Israel witnessed God giving the ten commandments. Such a claim could have never been started.

• If the claim was started at the time or shortly after the time when such event supposedly happened, the false ‘prophet’ relaying such a claim would not be believed because the events would be easily verifiable. Not only did the supposed event just occur, but anyone being lied to would have easy access to others who supposedly witnessed it (everyone was there).

• If the mass revelation claim was falsely created many generations after the supposed event, the figure who introduced the claim would be recorded as a hero/prophet. Since no such figure exists, it could not have been created many generations after.

Given that there is no scenario where the mass revelation claim could have been falsely started, it must be true.

Counter-Argument

There are three fundamental premises to this argument:

1. The Torah claims that the Jews witnessed an event that could not be natural.
2. The Jews could not have accepted a factually inaccurate book.
3. If the false myth was introduced at a later time we would know who wrote it or we would be aware of an introduction event.

And the general counter-arguments to these claims are:

1. The Torah claims that the people heard thunderous sounds which Moshe told them was the voice of god, but they could not understand the words told to them. So even if the event happened it could have easily been a natural phenomena explained by Moshe as supernatural. Besides this being the pashut-pshat, it is also the belief of the Rambam. This counters premise #1.
2. The Jews were illiterate and could not validate any claims written in scrolls. The entire passing down of scrolls was handled by a literate elite. There was no way for the general Jewish populace to validate claims of the books, so they could have been written at any point without being mass. This counters premise #2 (and somewhat #3).
3. Large portions of the book are already written anonymously which is a normal occurrence for most of history. Why do the anonymous portions of the book not have an author/hero/prophet? There is no author for large portions of the text because anonymous texts (legends and myths) was normal in ancient times. The Torah does not stand out in its anonymity, and could have been introduced without need for a hero/prophet. This counters premise #3.
4. The Torah was never intended to be a historical document in the first place, and will take creative liberties in its writing when it deems them necessary to make a point. Fact and history were not even words when the book was originally written. Its goal is to present a religion and a relationship between a people and god, not to be a factual account of history. This counters premise #1 and #2.
5. Similar to counter-argument #4, the people who accepted Tanach already accepted a book that is riddled with factual inconsistencies (some of which I cover here). Another non-factual account would not be out of place. This counters premise #1 and #2.

I'm going to go through each of these counter-arguments later, but I want to briefly elaborate on the 4th claim as by itself it seems the most unfounded. The people at the time have many accounts of history that were self-contradicting (including the Torah), but that was never a major concern of these historians because they were not trying to record exact facts, but rather make points. You can see examples of this in ancient Egypt. Additionally, there are Orthodox Jews that believe the Torah itself can embellish facts to make points (R. Kook). I know all this needs citation, for now I'll leave these two videos by R. Berman 1 2.

Todo

How it probably happened

Sources

In depth explanation of each point

Small point with Hilkiah being a possible insertion point

If in fact this event did happen and it was passed down, where are all the personal family histories talking about your great granddad who heard god on sinai? (although its possibly more than 100 generations ago)

There clearly was dissent by other peoples? If this was false, it does not require everyone to believe it. It requires a culture to uphold it.