The Bible UnveiledMangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Religion
The Bible Unveiled
Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
_And the Lord said unto Moses, write thou these words... And he (Moses)
was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights... And he wrote upon
the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments._ *
* 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.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks.
7. Thrice in the year shall all your men children (women not wanted)
appear before the Lord God.
8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
9. The sacrifice of the passover shall not be left over till the
morning.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk._
That these were the commandments given to take the place of those
unfortunately lost appears by the text that follows, and which we ask
permission to quote again:
_And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words:
... And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten
commandments._ *
* Exodus xxxiv, 27.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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