One of the most archetypal and beloved stories of the Old Testament happens after Moses has led his people out of their captivity in Egypt, when they camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses ascends to the mountain in order to receive a big bunch of commandments (including the ten famous ones) directly from God himself.
In Christianity this is considered one of the key moments of not just the Biblical narrative, but the entirety of the religion, not just because of the Ten Commandments having been given to Moses (according to the narrative), but the overall significance of the event. It is also the immediate precursor of another key event in the story that happens at the end of it, ie. the infamous Golden Calf incident (one of the most referenced and painted of all Biblical events.) The entire story is full of memorable key events that shapes the entire Old Testament narrative.
This event is often narrated in sermons, Christian events (such as youth camps), and studied in Bible study groups. Christians marvel at the events, and the sheer power of God that's described in the text.
However, not many Christians ever stop to think about some of the most incongruent details of the story. These details are (for the most part) not incongruent within this particular portion of the text, but they are highly incongruent with the overall Christian theology and narrative.
Some of the incongruities in the story include:
1) In the story, God physically descends on top of the mountain. The text (Exodus 19:16-18) says:
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.
This raises a question: If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, why does he need to physically descend on top of a mountain in order to personally meet with Moses, and what's with the light and smoke show?
It is implied (and in fact outright stated later) that God needs to surround himself in very thick clouds so that the people cannot see him, as directly seeing him would mean instantaneous death. And, thus, God needs to hide himself in the cloud to protect the people. It's also implied in the text above that he is so immensely powerful that his mere physical presence causes fire, lightning and violent trembling of the ground.
More curiously, this is literally the only place in the entire Bible where God is described like this, and does something like this, and is stated to need to "hide" himself in this manner to protect people from seeing him and immediately dying. Quite notably, there are other places where it is said that God personally visits someone without such a light, smoke and ground tremor show (the clearest and most prominent example of this being when God, personally, appeared to Abraham. Not through a messenger, but literally in person.)
The narrative also implies that God is a being who can be at a particular place and do particular physical actions, such as literally physically and visibly descending on top of a mountain, and his sheer immense power causes fire, lightning and earthquakes. The text heavily implies, not just in the above passage but also later on, that it's not just to show off, to show people how powerful he is, but that it's almost like something that God can't control, and the only thing he can do in order to not immediately incinerate people to ashes is to surround himself with very thick clouds that completely cover him from view.
Christian apologists usually rationalize this by claiming that it's just symbolic: God doesn't actually have the need to physically hide himself or else everybody who sees him dies. He did it here just to indicate his presence to the people and cause awe and reverence to them, and to stop them from rushing to climb the mountain.
However, there's nothing in the text that indicates this. There is no portion of the text that explains that God only did this for show, or to deter people from approaching, or anything of the sort. Most Christians love to claim that they only interpret the Bible literally, just what it says and nothing more, yet time and again they insert their own personal interpretations into the text, they constantly "read between the lines" things that aren't said there.
2) In the same vein, at one point Moses asks God if he could see him. What follows is consistent with the above narrative, but makes it even more incongruent with Christian theology in general.
God tells Moses that he cannot show his face because that would cause Moses immediately to die (Exodus 33:19-20):
And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Again: How come an omnipotent God cannot show his face to a human, or else the human will die?
Instead, God goes through this asinine routine where Moses hides behind a rock, God covers him with his hand (apparently god has hands), and then quickly passes through and allows Moses to see a glimpse of his back.
There's nothing in the text that would indicate this to be somehow metaphorical or figurative. It is quite clear from the text that the author literally meant that God himself was literally and physically present there, he literally has hands, a backside and a face, Moses literally hid behind a rock that had a cleft through which Moses could peek through, and God literally covered him with his hand, uncovering him only briefly while physically passing by with his literal back turned towards him.
Nothing in the text indicates this being something metaphorical, or a dream, or something like that. There's nothing indicating that this is some kind of symbolism. It's narrated as being exactly what physically happened, and that it was literally required for Moses to survive.
So it once again raises the question: Why would an omnipotent omnipresent God need these theatrics?
Christian apologists try to rationalize and explain this away, but the text itself is quite clear: It is what literally physically happened, there was no other way, and it was necessary. There's no indication that God was just showing off or doing some kind of symbolic demonstration to teach a lesson or something. It is written as if it was absolutely necessary to do it like that.
And also this, quite notably, is literally the only place in the entire Bible where this kind of thing is described. Nowhere else.
3) When the infamous Golden Calf incident happens, Moses quite famously destroys the two tablets that he had, containing the original Ten Commandments (given in Exodus 20, and it's implied that also a big bunch of other commandments were written on the tablets), and after the incident has been dealt with, Moses ascends to the mountain once again, and the text quite explicitly says (Exodus 34:1):
The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.”
The fact that these new tablets contained the famous Ten Commandments is extremely explicitly and unambiguously stated after them having been listed in that chapter, in Exodus 34:27-28:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
It couldn't be clearer than that. These are not just some random new commandments. These are the Ten Commandments, using "the words that were on the first tablets".
The problem?
The ten commandments listed between the first and 27th verses are completely different from the first Ten Commandments (the first set being the famous ones). A few of the commandments are somewhat similar to the first ones, using different wording, but the majority of them are completely different.
This is not denied by biblical scholars and most theologians, who call the first set the "Ethical Decalogue" and this second set the "Ritual Decalogue". However, the vast majority of Christian believers just ignore this contradiction.
In fact, the vast majority of Christians don't even know about this second set. There are literally people who have been avid practicing Christians for several decades who have never encountered this nor know about it. When they encounter it for the first time, they are invariably surprised. I'm not even kidding. (The most common reaction is to keep ignoring it, shoving it aside with a thought that there must be an explanation to it that they simply haven't heard.)
The actual explanation, particularly to the two first points above, is that this is most likely yet again one of those independent orally transmitted myths that at some point got incorporated into the Jewish mythology and texts.
Taking into account the details of the story, and how incongruent and contradictory it is compared to the rest of Jewish and Christian theology, it's quite clear that it was most likely a myth from another religion, or some kind of "pseudo-Jewish" myth floating around (similarly to how the myth that people become angels is widespread, even though no Christian denomination actually teaches this), which was then reworded a bit and incorporated into the Jewish canon, either by directly adapting and writing it into the scripture, or it being first adapted and told as an oral myth as part of the Jewish religion and then later written down.
