We witness at Sinai a Media war: the winning Medium is alphabetical writing, the losers are images (idols) and orality (myth), outdated protagonists of prehistory. The idol of the golden calf (Aleph in Hebrew, the god Bees in Egypt) is destroyed and replaced by the alphabetic letter (Alef, then Alpha and A).
In the tablets of Moses, the Invisible God is imposed, bringing “The writing of God, engraved on the tablets” in the first two commandments removes images and forbids oral cults, thus marking the mental transition from polytheistic idolatry to monotheism, which also paves the way for the new dimension of abstract thought and moral consciousness.
When the Romans conquer Jerusalem and breach the temple, they expect to find a huge statue. But they do not. Tacitus reports, “Among the Romans, Gnaeus Pompey was the first to defeat the Jews and enter their temple with the right of the victor: from this it was learned that there was no image of deity inside: the seat was empty and their mysteries void.”
In the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the Temple in Jerusalem, was actually kept the Ark of the Covenant, which held the tablets of the Law.
In a sense, we have an identification of the new technique of writing, introduced by Moses, with the physical representation of God himself, who imposes himself on the chosen people marking a conscious and explicit historical break with previous civilizations.
Three millennia later, some may question the validity of Monotheism, but no one would want to return to the hieroglyphics and polytheism of the Egyptians. The mutation is drastic and irreversible.
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