We naturally think of the Decalogue as the work of Moses, but here we are faced by the difficulty that the Decalogue appears to exist in three recensions (Exod. xx. 1-17; xxxiv. 14-28; Deut. v. 6-21). The account in Exod. xxxiv., which forms part of the document "J," is reckoned to be the oldest of these, and the original of this might well go back to the time of Moses. It has been objected that the Decalogue is too ethical to suit the time of Moses, but is this not because we are inclined to read into the Ten Commandments far more than is to be found there? It can be shown that they are little more than ten laws of "rights." A special difficulty is found in ascribing the second commandment to this age, in view of its frequent uncensured breach; but perhaps there is some difference that escapes us between a molten image, which is prescribed in the first draft (Exod. xxxiv. 17), and the later prohibition of the graven image (Exod. xx. 4). In the foregoing examination we have allowed for the most rigorous demands of advanced criticism, demands which may have to be modified as criticism becomes more of a science, but there remains the need to discover what there was, on these critical assumptions, in the Mosaic religion that provided the way for a further advance into the faith which became the glory of Israel. What is it that makes the difference between Mosaism and the heathen Semitic religions, a difference which was to make the gradual growth of a pure Monotheism possible?