Endnote 11 – What Really Happened at Mount Sinai?

Throughout P, the object presented to Moses is called the testimony, with no mention of the tablets (Exodus 16:34, 25:16, 21, 22, 26:33–34, 27:21, 30:6, 36, 40:20; Leviticus 16:13, 24:3; Numbers 17:19, 25), while E and D refer everywhere to tablets, never mentioning the testimony. Only in three places does the traditional text refer to the “two tablets of the testimony” (Exodus 31:18a, 32:15, 34:29), and all three occur at precisely the points where P has been merged with E. In my opinion, P originally contained a continuous passage that began as follows: “When he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses the testimony.” In E’s narrative, immediately following Exodus 24:18b, E told of a similar event: “He then gave Moses two tablets, stone tablets which had been inscribed by the finger of God.” The redactor combined the two into one verse, Exodus 31:18. P originally continued immediately with “As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the testimony in his hand”; the words “two tablets of the” have been added in this verse (Exodus 34:29) by the redactor. In E, however, after Moses learns of the calf (Exodus 32:7–14), the story originally continued: “Thereupon Moses turned and went down the mountain bearing the two tablets, tablets inscribed on both their surfaces.” Here (Exodus 32:15) the words “of the testimony” have been added by the redactor. Thus, in the three passages cited, the phrase “the two tablets of testimony” was created by the redactor, who identified P’s testimony with E’s tablets.