a survey

[cellio]

If you are so inclined, I'm curious about your response to the following (replies initially screened; will unscreen and explain Wednesday):

Without looking, summarize what happened at Mount Sinai according to the torah, starting with God beginning to speak and ending with the golden calf. I'm looking for up to a few sentences, not detailed essays. (You can skip the building of the calf.)

If you like, please also say how you identify religiously (or that you don't).

Edit: Comments no longer initially screened. Also, there was one comment that the poster asked me to keep screened, which I thought I had done, but it's gone now. If I screwed that up, I apologize!

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

[Hmm... what's p'shat and what's midrash? A good exercise...]

• God speaks the decalogue (Ex. XX). "No other gods, no graven images. Got it?"
• Moshe, Joshua, the elders ascend Mt. Sinai (Only Moshe goes to the top)
• Lots of laws are given. V'sham'ru is in between here, iirc, which means that they must have started working on the mishkan.
• Forty days elapse. The people can't count; they tell Aaron that Moshe must be dead and they want a new god.
• Aaron tries to stall them, but they are insistent. He tells them to bring their gold and they do. (I believe it's midrash that his intent was to make them lose interest.) [Per your instructions, I'll skip the actual making of the calf.]
• Forty days are up, Moshe comes down, Joshua reports hearing a noise like battle from the camp. Moshe says, "That isn't battle," comes down, sees the orgy/avodah zara, smashes the tablets, tells the Levi'im to kill anyone who was participating in the A"Z. [I identify religiously as a Levi :-)]