* Exodus xxxiv, 27, 28.
But not only were the new commandments not in God's handwriting, but they were also totally different from the first Ten Commandments. Thus it was not only the divine writing that perished, but also the moral law as first given. It is true that Moses reports what the lost commandments were, but if he could remember them, why was it necessary for him to go up the Mount for a transcript of them? The unpleasant conclusion is forced upon our minds that not only had Moses forgotten what the broken tables of stone contained, but Jehovah, himself, could not remember them. Where, then, did Moses get the Ten Commandments which he says were on the broken slates? I do not know. If he reported them from memory, and his memory were reliable, why was a second set of slates ordered, that the Lord might write on them "the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest"? * If a second series of commandments were given, as the text plainly states, because the first series was lost, how did Moses reproduce the lost commandments? Could he have put the fragments of the broken tables together, restoring thereby the handwriting of God? Really, it is not history that the bible gives us, but gossip.
It has already been shown that the deity did not write the second version of the moral law with his own hand, although he promised he would. Let me now present the second version of the Ten Commandments, to show that Jehovah had forgotten just as completely as had Moses, the first Ten Commandments which he himself had inscribed on the slates.
* Exodus xxxiv, 1, abbreviated.
Exodus XXXIV.
1. Thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a Jealous God.
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
4. Every firstling that is male is mine. And the first fruits of the land thou shalt bring unto the Lord.
5. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.