Both stories can not be true. Either there was no quaking mountain, or sounding trumpet, or voice of God answering Moses from the summit, or the tale of the golden calf is an interpolation. If the people were too stupid to know better, how was it that Aaron, the brother of Moses, who had met "the true God" on several occasions, instead of showing the least indignation or surprise, says to them: _Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters, and bring them unto me._ *** * Exodus xix, 16,17,19. ** Exodus xxxii, 1. *** Exodus xxxii, 2. Yes, "bring me your gold," has been the cry of the mystery-man from the beginning of the world! _And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt_. * All this in full view of the flaming mountain, with God conversing with Moses, and the trumpet blowing louder and louder! It is simply impossible. There is not credulity enough in man, it seems to me, for such contradictory stories. I know men say they believe in them, but do they? Strange as was the conduct of Aaron and the people on this occasion, the behavior of Moses, when he came down and saw the people dancing like naked savages about their newly fashioned god, ** was even more inexplicable. He made a drink out of the golden calf, which he first ground into powder, and caused "the children of Israel to drink of it." *** What could have been his idea in converting the god into a beverage? A text like that indicates plainly the presence of fetishism in the bible. Even as looking at a brazen serpent was supposed to cure them of serpent bites, the drinking of gods melted into a beverage was thought to be a remedy against idolatry. Other examples, proving the fetishistic beliefs of Moses, are not wanting in the bible. To make a house "holy" or proof against the plague, Moses put up the following magical prescription: * Exodus xxxii, 4. ** Exodus xxxii, 25. *** Exodus xxxii, 20. _And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water: And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:_ _And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet._ * To ascertain a woman's virtue, the prescription was as follows: _And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water: